


rainy day / cravings may

by orgiastique



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blow Jobs, Bottom Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Bottom Sylvain Jose Gautier, Cunnilingus, Face-Fucking, Fingerfucking, M/M, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Seattle, Strap-Ons, Succubi & Incubi, Switching, Trans Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Trans Male Character, the little prince references that no one asked for in a succubus au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:40:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26584528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orgiastique/pseuds/orgiastique
Summary: Sylvain's just raised his hand to wave for the check when a man slides into the empty seat next to him. He wears his sleek, dark hair gathered up in a high ponytail long enough for the end to lay over one shoulder, and he's covered up to the neck in black and leather, not a hint of exposed skin anywhere save for his face and hands. Sylvain's gaze stalls over the suede boots that hug his toned legs all the way to mid-thigh.When the man turns to Sylvain, his eyes are hungry, and searching, and selfish.Sylvain's hand falls limp against the counter.or, Sylvain falls in love with his succubus one-night stand.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 55
Kudos: 220
Collections: Sylvix Week 2020 Fic Collection





	1. rainy day

**Author's Note:**

> \- succubus au inspired by @fimbulyeetr's art [here](https://twitter.com/fimbulyeetr/status/1287935518857138177?s=20), [here](https://twitter.com/fimbulyeetr/status/1288224815715946499?s=20), and [here](https://twitter.com/fimbulyeetr/status/1291833148087644166?s=20)  
> \- HUGE shout-out to [quietgal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quietgal/pseuds/quietgal) for being my dialogue coach and ghostwriter. thank you!!!!!!!  
> \- fyi incubus/succubus in this verse is not defined by a gender binary but whether they receive sexual energy from Giving or Receiving, respectively, during sexytimes.  
> \- words used to describe felix's bits: cunt, dick, clit, folds, lips, cock  
> 

January threatens to drown Seattle in an endless plume of rain. Dusty drizzle bounces off yellow rain slickers, collecting at every street corner in puddles that wait to be kicked up by the heel of rubber boots. For months now, the cityscape has been veiled in a sort of ambivalence that makes Sylvain ache to reach a hand down his throat in search of the itch in his chest. 

He clocks out of work at 4:43PM, leaving behind an office full of his more studious coworkers. From the next cube over, Annette shoots him a thinly-veiled look of disappointment before wishing him a good weekend. 

What can he say? He'd taken this job for the oceanview and distance from Wisconsin. He tells himself that he has no plans of going back, but he doesn't know what he'd do with himself if he didn't. Not that it really even matters. The future will come when it comes, and with any luck, Sylvain will be too old and tired by then to feel hollowed out over it.

In the meantime, he is a man out to play with fire.

As always, he sets out for Failnaught. Located in the heart of the financial district, right next door to Pike Place Market and the giant Ferris wheel, the bar manages to gather a solid crowd regardless of the day of week. 

Plus, Failnaught has Khalid.

In between prowling and being prowled on, Sylvain slides in across from wherever he's working at the bar. Sometimes he wonders if he's more excited about hitting up Khalid for a good chat than he is hitting on women for sex.

They're both people who can hold a conversation about pretty much anything from organized religion to Teletubbies conspiracy theories. But by the end of the night, without fail, they find themselves defaulting to their true passions, which for Sylvain happens to be—

"Everyone talks about the machismo and war wounds, but what about all the waiting?" 

Khalid hums, nodding. "Fishing tends to be all about the waiting."

Sylvain snaps his fingers _Yes!_ and grins. "But it's not just _The Old Man the Sea_! Go back and read any of his stories, and you'll see that everybody's waiting. That couple waiting for the train in 'White Elephants.' The guy from _Farewell to Arms_ waiting for his wife to give birth. Nick Adams is always waiting. They wait and wait and wait, and what do they get? Abortion. A dead wife _and_ baby. Pain that doesn't fade away no matter how much time passes." He lifts his whiskey to his lips. "Guess Hemingway didn't believe in the saying 'Good things come to those who wait.'"

"Maybe the point is that all these people wait, hoping for something to change. It's just that more often than not, things don't." Khalid shrugs. "Gatsby and his green light."

"Another dead guy."

"That crowd isn't called the Lost Generation for the groovin' parties they threw."

"At least they had a world war to blame."

"You don't need to have witnessed mass murder to feel rightly lost in the world, I don't think," Khalid says.

Sylvain smiles wryly up at him, then down at the glass of water he slides quietly across the counter. Khalid winks before drifting off to take another customer's order. Sylvain takes a gulp of the water, feeling it soothe the burn at the back of his throat.

It seems that everywhere around Seattle, there are clock towers to remind you that it's time for the next big thing. A miniature of the King Street Station Tower stands in one corner of the bar. It's getting late. Time to admit defeat and go home. It's not that he didn't have any fun with the people he met tonight, but taking any of them to bed would be like scratching the skin of your chest to get at an itch niggling far behind your ribs.

He tips back the rest of his water. He's just raised his hand to wave for the check when a man slides into the empty seat next to him. He wears his sleek, dark hair gathered up in a high ponytail long enough for the end to lay over one shoulder, and he's covered up to the neck in black and leather, not a hint of exposed skin anywhere save for his face and hands. Sylvain's gaze stalls over the suede boots that hug his toned legs all the way to mid-thigh.

When the man turns to Sylvain, his eyes are hungry, and searching, and selfish.

Sylvain's hand falls limp against the counter.

* * *

His name is Felix. He orders two shots of tequila when Sylvain offers to buy him a drink. He knocks them both back, leaving the salt and lime untouched.

Sylvain thinks he might die fucking him.

Which, _surely_ , explains why the words that come biblical-level-flooding out of his mouth are a rehash of the conversation he just had with Khalid, as if his brain cannot possibly invent new thought at the moment.

For the official record, Sylvain considers himself practiced at charming people he finds attractive. It's just—everything about Felix is intense. Even in silence, there's something electric in the way that he stares at Sylvain, like he'd be able to jolt Sylvain's heart back to life if he does, in fact, die fucking him.

But God only knows how he's _ever_ going to do that when he's still ranting like a lunatic about literary waiting and dying. It's the alcohol, right? Let's just say it's the alcohol.

"So after the kid finds out that he's not going to die of influenza, he starts whining about all the things he didn't care about when he thought he was about to meet his creator. He's come full circle—the circle of life, if you will—but he'd gone on this perilous journey to get there. He's escaped death, if only in his head. And the dad is there watching all this unfold. Well, except when he goes hunting—yeah, his kid is having a meltdown over dying of the flu and the dad goes _hunting_ because that's the thing: he sees his kid suffering but doesn't understand why. He cares, probably, somewhere deep, deep, _deep_ down inside. But he knows the truth is that his kid isn't going to die, and that's why he goes hunting, even though the objective reality isn't what matters to the kid."

Sylvain pauses to catch his breath. His hand is clammy on his thigh. Does he have pit-stains on his dress shirt? Thank God it's black.

Felix runs a slow finger along the lip of one of his empty shot glasses.

Anxious to fill the silence, Sylvain throws out a "Haha, anyway. So, what do you do?"

"What matters, then?" Felix asks.

"Excuse me?"

"What matters, then," Felix repeats, "if not the reality of whether or not a kid's going to die?"

Sylvain measures the laser-sharp focus of Felix's eyes, traces the solemn slash of his mouth. He has very nice lips: on the thin side, but with an elegant bow-curve. "Do you know the red-faced gentleman who's never smelled a flower or looked at a star? _He's never loved anyone. He's never done anything except add up numbers_ ," he recites from memory. "He's a grown-up, and he doesn't care about the one flower among the stars. Maybe, in his mind, the flower doesn't exist at all. But to a prince who loves the flower, the weight of his feelings is everything."

"So to him, it is a matter of consequence, no matter what the grown-ups say," Felix says. His lips twitch with the suggestion of a smile at the wide-eyed look Sylvain casts him. "Everyone knows _The Little Prince_ , you pretentious prick."

Sylvain laughs, feeling it break loose from his chest. "As they should."

"It's a good story."

"Coincidentally, also features waiting and dying."

Felix crinkles his nose. "The prince doesn't _die_ at the end. He goes back to his home planet."

"He disappears from the pilot's life forever."

Felix's eyes grow distanced before he averts his gaze, turning toward the bar. "Is that how death works?" he murmurs, almost to himself. He crosses his legs on the bar stool, and folds his arms across his chest.

Instinct strikes Sylvain like a shooting star that if he doesn't get it right in this moment, Felix is the one who will vanish for good. He dons the smile he uses to appease, the one that's gentle around the eyes. "Sorry for boring you with all this morbid talk. I got carried away. Usually, the only one who humors me with this stuff is Khalid."

A beat passes, then Felix twists back to face him again. "It's not boring." He lets his arms fall loose in front of him. "What do you talk about to everyone else in a place like this?"

"In a place like this?" Sylvain feels his smile catching an edge. "You talk to people hoping that there won't be much talking left to do later, right?"

Felix's eyes flash gold in the dim lighting, and there's a matching sharpness to the slant of his mouth when he tilts his head to one side and lowers his lashes. "So, what are you hoping for right now?"

_To get to know you_ _better_ is there at the tip of Sylvain's tongue, but it's too deviant an ad lib for the script they're following. And anyway, he wants the thing Felix's thinking of as well. Maybe he can have both.

So he says, "I'm hoping that you're through with all the waiting, too."

* * *

It becomes clear from the first kiss that he probably isn't going to be able to have both. Sylvain doesn't remember the last time a simple _kiss_ —not even a very deep one at that, since they're still at the bar—had made his mind stutter, or if a "Not bad" murmured softly against his lips had ever made him so hard he thought he might lose consciousness from the blood rush.

Maybe it's the haze of arousal that prompts him to suggest that they take this back to his place instead of a hotel. It is a terrible idea, probably, inviting home this stranger who's dressed to conceal a dagger or two. He's never even taken home the safe-looking ones, the girls with the fake doll lashes whose most destructive weapons are the fake nails that claw up his back.

It's a terrible idea, but Sylvain needs to know what Felix's dark hair would look like fanned out over his bedsheets.

If Felix thinks anything of the lavish high-rise apartment Sylvain leads him into, or of the doorman that greets Sylvain as _Mr. Gautier_ , he doesn't mention it. Felix speaks more loudly, more honestly, with the charged looks he slips Sylvain than most people do with their words. He's not here to poke his nose into Sylvain's life. He just wants what he wants, and Sylvain is more than happy to give it to him.

The moment the door to his apartment closes behind them, Sylvain finds himself backed up against it, pinned like a taxidermy butterfly by the sharp, gold tacks of Felix's eyes. He lets his umbrella drop from his hand, hoping that it'll land in his umbrella bucket but not truly caring either way. It clatters noisily against the hardwood.

"Hey." Sylvain smiles. "Excited, are we?"

Felix mumbles something that sounds like _Hungry,_ and then he's dragging Sylvain down by the lapels of his jacket and fitting their lips together.

The kiss from the bar feels like child's play compared to the way Felix kisses now, like he might eat Sylvain alive. His mouth is wet and hot and tastes like cinnamon on Sylvain's tongue. He paws at Sylvain's abs and pecs with rough hands, then runs them up to his arms, sinking his fingertips into his deltoids, then up up up till they're wrapped around the base of his throat. It's not quite a choke, but it leaves Sylvain short of breath all the same. 

Sylvain strips back on the collar of Felix's leather jacket and ducks down to nip at the bunched muscle there, feeling it flex to attention. He marvels at how deceptive Felix's clothing had been in downplaying the threat of his strength. Felix's body is built like a steel coil, hard but not rigid, with so much untapped energy bottled up inside that it's no wonder touching him feels like being zapped by an exposed wire.

Felix buries his fingers into Sylvain's hair and yanks him up by its roots into another open-mouthed kiss. Sylvain moans and wraps his tongue around Felix's, and smiles when Felix makes a breathy little noise back.

In the timeless moments that follow, the inside of Felix's mouth is everything Sylvain tastes, his lean but potent body everything he feels; the spicy, clean scent of his skin everything is he smells, and the ragged breaths he plunders from Sylvain's lungs everything is he hears.

Sylvain's eyes blink open, drowsily, drunkenly. He finds dark-bright eyes already staring back.

When they break for air, Sylvain can't decide if he's grateful for the reprieve or if he just wants more, his desperation winning out over his survival imperative.

"Fuck," Felix growls. "You taste good."

"You don't have to be so mad about it," Sylvain says, smoothing down Felix's creased brow with a thumb. "You're quite the thing to write home about yourself. So pretty"—he slides one hand down to Felix's thigh, clenching the firm mass of raw power there—"so strong."

Felix must like this last bit because his eyes flash red for a split-second, and there's a quick baring of teeth before his tongue darts out to swipe over his kiss-bruised lips.

By this point in his life, Sylvain has lost count of the people who've only wanted him for his body. He has no delusions about Felix being any different in that regard, but Felix reacts to him with an animal instinct that's unlike the games the others make him play, in which he's a tool for pleasure, not something to be desired in and of himself.

Sylvain feels a switch being flipped inside him as he shoves off the door with his elbows and grabs Felix by the wrist. Felix lets himself stumble after Sylvain for only a few steps before he's reaching for him again, hooking his fingers into Sylvain's belt loop. Sylvain trips back into him, catching himself with a hand on the jut of his hip, and decides that rather than just dragging Felix along, the several feet to the bedroom can be better spent kissing and undressing him.

They're of one mind on that matter.

"What do you want?" Sylvain nips at Felix's jawline, fingering the sleeveless turtleneck sweater that's too sexy to part with but too much of a hindrance to keep around.

Felix's fingers are working at Sylvain's belt buckle as the two of them tumble past the threshold of Sylvain's bedroom, crashing into the dresser. They groan, then duck their heads together, huffing in breathless laughter.

Sylvain slips both his hands under Felix's sweater and drags his palms up the ridges of his abs. "Just tell me what you want. We can do anything."

"Anything, huh." Felix picks apart the top button of Sylvain's slacks, then looks up at him, challenge glinting in his eyes. "Even if I wanted you on your back, spread open for me?"

Sylvain licks his lips. It's been a while, and he'd have to change gears pretty fast from what he'd been imagining, but he's down to roll with it. "Yeah. Sure. That sounds good."

Felix snorts and draws back from Sylvain's arms. For a moment, Sylvain fears he's failed whatever test Felix has given him, but then Felix is pulling the knit off over his head and Sylvain releases the breath he was holding. He rakes his eyes up Felix's torso from the top half of a tattoo that disappears into the waistband of pants, past the trim lines of his waist, to the scars hugging the underside of his pecs.

The sweater slinks down onto the floor. "We'd need some extra equipment to do that. You have stuff?"

"No," Sylvain says, swallowing. 

"Thought so." Felix gives Sylvain a shove to the chest, then another, and another, and Sylvain tumbles backwards until the backs of his knees hit the edge of the bed and he lets himself fall over the mattress. Felix climbs on top of him, pinning him by the hips. "Just as well. That's something good boys have to _earn_."

"God," Sylvain groans, bucking up into him. "You're going to be the death of me."

Felix smirks. "Lucky for you, I have different plans tonight."

* * *

In the end, Sylvain gets Felix laid out over his sheets for only a couple of minutes before Felix jerks him up from where he'd been tracing the tattoo around Felix's belly button with his tongue, and flips them. Sylvain braces his hands on the back of Felix's spread thighs, steadying him.

"You sure know a lot of ways to waste time," Felix accuses.

"And you sure like to go for a ride," Sylvain returns half-heartedly, distracted by the honey trail at his fingertips, too slippery to be sweat. He slides his fingers up the slick path and draws a long, slow breath to calm the spike of arousal in his blood when they dip into the sopping mess between Felix's legs.

"Doesn't feel like a waste if it got you like this for me," he breathes, cock hard enough to pierce steel.

"Don't flatter yourself," Felix scoffs. "It's always like this."

Sylvain chuckles hoarsely. "Jesus, how are you even real?" Felix ignores him, lifting up onto his knees, and begins to line himself up with the head of Sylvain's cock. "Wait, let me get a condom—"

"I'm clean," Felix says.

"Aren't you worried about catching something from me?"

"No."

"What about preg—"

"Not possible," Felix says, hovering impatiently. Sylvain's whole body tenses as a thread of Felix's slick smears over the head of his cock, then dribbles slowly down one side. "Are you going to interrogate me or fuck me?"

The answer is easy enough. He helps guide Felix down and almost loses it at the heat and grip of him.

"You feel incredible," Sylvain groans, burying his face in Felix's neck.

Felix rides him like they've got no promise of tomorrow. He isn't very loud with his pleasure, but there's something even sexier than noisy moans in the breathy little gasps and grunts that tumble from his lips that edges Sylvain ever closer to bursting. Felix is breathtaking like this, face contorted and hips rolling, and Sylvain could watch him, listen to him, forever and be happy with just that.

But then Felix says, "Come. Want you to come inside," and Sylvain screws his eyes shut. His hips stutter upwards and his fingers dig into the flesh of Felix's thighs. 

He feels himself getting there, getting so close, like a rubberband primed to snap, when on a mismatch of their rhythm, his cock slips free. He hears Felix click his tongue and swear as he scrambles to sink down over Sylvain again. Sylvain can't help but smile, finding himself helplessly fond of the way that Felix is so honest about his desire. He wants to assure him that there's no rush, he's here, they have all night, and the morning, and maybe even beyond that, if Felix wants to see him again, too.

Sylvain opens his eyes to tell him this. And that's when his heart all but stops.

In the darkness, Felix's eyes glow with hellfire. Black stubs—horns? Are they honest-to-God _horns_?—are sprouting from the top of his head.

Sylvain gulps, lifting a trembling hand to gesture at the...the— _everything_. "What's…"

Felix freezes full-stop. When their eyes meet and hold, Sylvain sees his shock reflected back in Felix's red sclera. Felix seems to take in his own reflection, too, before breaking eye contact with a grimace.

He reaches up to touch one of his own horns. "Fuck. Thought it was just a headache."

Sylvain laughs weakly. "I have Ibuprofen in my medicine cabinet?"

"Shut up," Felix snaps, jaw clenching. "How are you making jokes? Do you not understand your situation." 

Another laugh chokes out of Sylvain's throat. Next in line might be his heart, jackrabbiting somewhere around his jugular notch. "No, but I can _ooh_ and _ahh_ some more, if you'd like."

"Do you think this is some fucking party trick?"

"It'd be the best I've ever seen," Sylvain mumbles, distracted by a black cord whipping around behind Felix. 

"Well, it's not," Felix growls, eyes narrowing into slits.

Sylvain studies him. Felix seems to be guardedly tracking Sylvain's every move like _he's_ the cornered animal ready to lash out and flee. Would a demon with real intent to kill try so hard to convince their victim that they should be afraid? If it's true that Felix hadn't meant to reveal his true form, could it be that he's just feeling exposed and vulnerable?

"Did you… not mean to show me all this?" Sylvain asks.

Felix folds his arms in front of his chest. "Of course not."

"Then why did you…" Sylvain tilts his head at Felix, still trying to get a read on him because that seems easier than trying to get a read on the situation itself. But it's so hard to focus with the consuming heat of Felix's body around him, burning even hotter than before. Maybe it's that Sylvain just hasn't fully come to terms with reality, but he doesn't want this to stop. He can tell by the wariness in Felix's expression that one wrong word, and he'll send him running for the hills, never to return again. "What made you go all horns and heart-tail on me?"

"It's not a _heart_ , fuck you," Felix hisses, wrapping his tail around his body defensively.

Sylvain stares at it. Maybe Felix prefers to think of it as "spade-shaped," but it's definitely a heart.  For some reason, Sylvain wants to touch it. 

"It's kind of hot," he offers.

" _What_."

"Your whole look."

"I'm a _succubus_ ," Felix enunciates, as if Sylvain is very, very slow.

Sylvain is mostly still very, very horny for him. A rational mind might be planning the best escape route with the lowest chance of getting one's soul sucked out through one's dick, but Sylvain's never had a very good sense of self-preservation. 

He just thinks that it must feel shitty, baring yourself to someone you can't trust not to think the worst of you. That's something Sylvain can relate to. Most people would probably react to knowing what Felix really is with some mixture of horror and disgust, but when it really comes down to it, what's the big deal? If Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde turn out to be one man, then isn't there a bit of a monster inside of us all?

"I'm into it," Sylvain says, sliding a hand up the gentle curve of Felix's back, around his neck, settling around his cheek. His skin is so smooth, so hot. "Have you been feeding on me this whole time?"

Sylvain leans forward to place a kiss on one corner of Felix's left eye. When he pulls back, he still doesn't know what to make of Felix's expression, but it feels like something's softened there.

"Just a little to taste," Felix mumbles quietly. "You'll know when I really feed."

"Oh yeah?" Sylvain rolls his hips up into him, and Felix gasps, thigh muscles tensing, before he grinds back. "You gonna drain me, baby?"

"You're so fucking _weird_ ," Felix says and begins to rock against Sylvain again in small increments that are more agonizing than anything. Sylvain can feel Felix's swollen clit rubbing against him, but when he reaches down to offer a hand, Felix bats it out of the way. "You know this isn't some weird roleplay, right? You're really getting off on me sucking you dry?"

"I told you I'd let you have whatever you want," Sylvain says, cupping Felix's pecs in his hands, thumbing the nipples in patient circles the way he wishes Felix would let him do with his cock. "We don't have to stop just because you're a demon, right?"

Experimentally, he drives his hips into Felix at a different angle, one that makes the tip of his cock meet resistance and Felix fist his hair. "Dumbass," he gasps and brings himself down at that same angle again.

They don't stop.

Sylvain can't remember the last time he'd finished first, but he does. A relieved gust drains all the tension from his body, and it's so intense it's unreal, like he's a sheet of paper crumpled up into a ball, then torn open again.

"What the hell," he rasps, melting back against the headboard, boneless. He's covered in sweat and still shuddering from the aftershocks of his orgasm. "That was insane. Do demons do magic? That felt magical."

"I told you you'd know when I fed from you. It'll pass." Felix keeps moving over Sylvain's cock, which is still rock hard. It's a bit of a weird sensation while the rest of his body feels limp, like his dick is the only one that didn't get the memo.

"You good up there?" Sylvain asks, stroking a hand up Felix's side. He traces a finger around the little nubs over his shoulder blades and feels Felix shiver, goosebumps rising in the wake of the touch. "Ticklish?"

"No," Felix returns sharply, like being ticklish is an insult or weakness. "Feels weird. Stop touching them. Otherwise I'll put them away."

"Hmmm, I thought you couldn't control your shapeshifting?" Sylvain says, but does move his hands away, skating his fingertips down Felix's spine until his palms are cupping his butt cheeks. When Felix doesn't answer, just sits there looking furious and embarrassed, Sylvain smiles. "Oh, I see. It was an empty threat. Awfully cute of you."

He lifts Felix up by the rear and lays him down onto his back. He's a thing of beauty, all tousled and flushed against Sylvain's cream-colored sheets, and Sylvain tells him so.

As expected, Felix has a thing to say about that, but it's not the complaint Sylvain thought he'd register: "You're not going to last very long on top."

Sylvain wraps Felix's long, shapely legs around his waist. "We'll see about that."

* * *

Round two, and Sylvain's still determined to one-up the sex demon.

Round three, and Sylvain's determination is slipping.

Round four, and Felix is back on top again.

"What did I tell you," he says, rocking smugly in Sylvain's lap.

More than being proven wrong about his own stamina, Sylvain feels mostly let down by the fact that Felix hasn't come even once. If he had more energy in him, he'd put Felix on his hands and knees and pound that spot deep inside him that he seems to like so much; or knead against it, nice and slow, until Felix's smothering his own cries into the pillow, then reach around to stroke him to the finish. Or better yet, put him on his back again, but this time, use his mouth on him, lick the creamy mess pouring from him and show this succubus what _real_ hunger looks like.

All these great ambitions and Sylvain hasn't a fraction of the strength required to achieve them. Meanwhile, Felix soldiers on. 

He tsks, looking down at Sylvain. "After all those rumors about you, I thought you'd last longer."

"Please," Sylvain groans, feeling the world spin around him. "I'm only human."

Felix hmphs, then puts a hand on Sylvain's cheek. He gives it a pat. "Do you need to stop?"

The world stops spinning for a brief moment as Sylvain focuses on the red-hot flames burning in Felix's eyes. It's pretty, so pretty and bright.

Sylvain shakes his head. "Not until you're satisfied."

* * *

By round five, Sylvain is floating on some sex-high sixth dimension. The line between pleasure and pain has been long erased by the exhaustion that settles deep in his every tissue. Only in the vaguest of terms is he aware of Felix pulsing and clenching wildly around his over-stimulated cock, coming at last.

In his delirium, he thinks he sees Felix's tattoo flicker electric blue. And then he's out.

* * *

It's late in the afternoon when Sylvain wakes up the next day. This is not unusual. What's odd is that he hadn't stirred awake even once during the night and feels… _well-rested_ for once.

Felix is gone. When Sylvain rolls out of bed, sore in the thighs and abs and dick, he retraces their steps from the bedroom back to the front door, finding only a trail of his own clothing along the path. He digs his phone out of his pants pocket, harboring a brief moment of hope that Felix might have programmed his number into his phone, since there was no note on the bedside table. 

No dice.

There's a text from Khalid, though.

_Mornin' sunshine. How'd your night turn out_? _;)_

Sylvain considers this.

_Like you wouldn't believe_.

* * *

The lesser known version of "objects in motion stay in motion" is "once Sylvain makes a bad decision, he will see it through until he crashes and burns."

So, the next time he returns to Failnaught and doesn't find Felix there, he leaves a note with Khalid to pass on. He tells himself not to hold his breath, though, because if Felix wanted him to call, he'd have left some way of contacting him before he left in the morning, right? 

But then again, did succubi even use cellular technology?

In any case, Felix knows where he lives, so the ball's in his court. The fact that Felix just left without a word and hasn't made a peep all week seems to speak loud and clear to the fact that it was just a one-off thing, except—

"Don't you think _Sylvie_ is too cute for you," Felix says the following Friday. He's holding up the autographed copy of _The Little Prince_ that had gone missing from Sylvain's bookshelf.

Sylvain reminds his hummingbird heart to play it cool. "Hey," he croaks, then clears his throat. "I was hoping to get that back. Just imagine little Sylvie in line at the bookstore for _hours,_ waiting to meet the person who wrote his favorite book—"

"The author disappeared into the Mediterranean the year after it was published," Felix says, shoving the book into Sylvain's chest and pushing past him through the door. "You got it signed by the _translator_."

"Yeah, my friend Ingrid gave it to me for my birthday," Sylvain says, then waves the book in the air. "You're free to borrow another from my collection. Some Hemingway, maybe?"

Felix strips off his black leather jacket and tosses it over the back of one of the dining chairs, despite the fact that he walked right past a perfectly good coat rack. He peers back over his shoulder at Sylvain. "You didn't get me back here to talk more about waiting and dying, did you?"

Sylvain can't help the slow smile blooming across his face. He slips his fingers around Felix's wrist, bringing his hand to his lips. "Not to be forward, but I was thinking you might also stay for the McFeast I've put on tonight."

Felix looks to Sylvain's mouth, then his hand, then back up again. He takes his hand back. "Human food is a waste on me."

"Do excuse me." Sylvain feigns a small bow, grin growing cheeky. "May I interest you in some succubi flavors? Though I'm afraid we only have one in stock at the moment…"

Felix huffs a laugh through his nose. "I thought _you_ were going to eat dinner?" He tilts his head at the paper bag on the kitchen table.

Sylvain smiles. "Sure. But I'd much rather share my meal with you."

* * *

"What are you doing."

With the fuss Felix had put up about Sylvain touching his dick last time, he'd let up surprisingly easily today after they'd tripped back onto the couch together. Maybe handjobs are more of a second-date thing for succubi—who knew? It's been seven long days and nights thinking about all the things he'd do to Felix if he ever got him back in his bed again (or on his couch, as the case may be) and he isn't going to waste time getting hung up on the details.

He kisses a line down the crease of Felix's hip as his thumb rubs slow circles around his clit. "What's that, sweetheart?"

"Don't call me that," Felix snaps, predictably. "I asked you what you think you're—" he cuts off with a gasp. "— _fuck_."

"You like that?" Sylvain hooks his fingers against the same spot. "There?"

Felix gasps, legs falling open wider around Sylvain's shoulders. "Fuck you."

"We did talk about that last time, didn't we," Sylvain murmurs against Felix's thigh. He smells so good everywhere, all spicy and woody, but especially right here, where the butterfly lips of his cunt glisten with his slick. When Sylvain thrusts his fingers in farther, more of that thick, sweet honey pools in his palm. "Jesus, Felix. You have no idea how good you look."

Felix tries to squirm away, but it's clear his protests aren't in earnest by how easily he lets himself be held in place by Sylvain's arm. "Why are you doing this."

"Doing what? Making you feel good?"

"With your _fingers_ ," Felix scoffs, the effect tempered by the pink flush of his cheeks. "Is your dick broken?"

"Oh, you did _quite_ a number on it last time," Sylvain informs him with a quiet chuckle, "but fortunately, no. It just felt a bit inconsiderate, the way I tapped out before I could take care of you."

"I don't do this for recreation," Felix says. "Whether or not I come doesn't matter."

"In the human world," Sylvain says, dragging his fingertips along the front wall of Felix's cunt as he slowly withdraws his fingers, "we sometimes eat things we like just because they taste good. Besides, I am but a simple mortal who wants to see you come, and you are a sex demon who can feed on my amped-up horny energy when that happens. Win-win."

"Says who?" Felix huffs, pushing himself up on his elbows to glare down properly at Sylvain. "You don't know the first thing about me. I'm the strongest succubus in all of—"

He cuts off with a shout as Sylvain's mouth envelopes his erection. It's enough to make Sylvain lose his mind, how good Felix tastes. It's the demon magic, surely. No one can possibly taste _this_ fucking fantastic or feel this good sliding against his tongue. It's like swallowing the golden yolk of the sun as it lifts up over the ocean, so perfect and pure and true that it makes everything else seem unimportant. He pulls off Felix's clit and moves down to suck on his lips. When he teases his fingertips against Felix's entrance, Felix rises to them, seeking, rocking up, fucking his hand.

It's tempting to close his eyes and bask in the taste and scent and feel of him, but he can't bring himself to give up watching the way he gnaws his lips raw holding back his voice, or the way he sneaks little looks down at Sylvain to watch but blinks away when he catches Sylvain's eye.

Sylvain has all but forgotten about the whole sex demon thing by the time Felix's horns push through his forehead and the long whip of his tail curls down between his legs, his toenails elongating into claws. In better lighting, Felix's tattoo looks like a shield with a little person in it, and he trembles when Sylvain strokes the lines of it with his thumb.

Felix comes with his legs in a chokehold around Sylvain's neck. Sylvain's face is soaked from nose to chin in his juices, and he might be losing oxygen flow to his head but he keeps up the rhythm he'd built bobbing his head up and down on Felix's cock until Felix is shoving him with a foot to the chest. His hand is drenched in Felix's come down to the wrist. 

Chest heaving, Felix watches through half-lidded eyes as Sylvain licks his fingers and palm clean with slow, deliberate care.

"So? You ready to win again?" Sylvain asks when he's finished.

Felix turns his face to one side. "Do what you're gonna do."

A blush darkens his cheeks, the color spilling down and across his chest. The cryptic shape etched over his pubic bone gives an excited little flicker of that same bright, electric blue Sylvain remembers from last time.

_Do what you're gonna do_ , Sylvain surmises, might just be Felix for _I want you to have your way with me_.

Eager to please, he gets down to work with vigor. He brings Felix off two more times with his mouth and fingers, then almost once on his nipples alone before Felix starts cursing and scratching, eyes wet, and Sylvain fucks him soft and pliant again over the back of the couch. He works into him so hard and relentless that the couch threatens to rattle apart on its stubby wooden legs.

They wiggle over to another section of the couch to avoid the cooling wet spot, and Sylvain slides down under Felix, putting him in place to ride his face. He cups his hands around Felix's buttocks and guides him closer, feeding his cunt into his greedy mouth. He tongues at his slit, probing slowly around the entrance as he pushes past the red, engorged folds, little by little. 

The eager rocking of Felix's hips against his face draws a tight, tortured moan from his throat. "Yeah, baby, just like that," he murmurs. He slides his hands in to part Felix's lips for better access, only for his wrists to be captured and bound together by a cord of some kind.

"What—" he begins but the rest of his question is muffled against the thrust Felix delivers into his mouth.

"Show me," Felix pants, fingers burrowing into Sylvain's hair. "Show me how good you can be for me."

_Fuck_. Sylvain feels his cock ache and twitch, leaking precome onto his abs. _I can be so good for you_ , he'd tell him if he were able. _I'll show you how much better I can be for you than anyone else_.

It's early into Saturday morning by the time Felix's not-tattoo is giving off a steady glow, and Felix nudge-kicks Sylvain's face away when he tries to duck between his thighs again. Sylvain hoists himself up onto the couch, and Felix dumps himself into his lap like a sack of bones, one horn butting Sylvain's cheek.

"Enough," he says. "I'm going to burst if I feed anymore. You're fucking insatiable."

" _You're_ the one feeding on _me_ ," Sylvain points out. He wipes his face on the back of his freed hands.

"Shit, I've never had so much in one sitting," Felix grumbles. "Dunno how you're not passed out."

Sylvain is plenty spent, but not in the semi-comatose way he'd been at the end of their last encounter. As he rearranges Felix's dead weight more comfortably over him, he wonders if there's something different in what Felix fed on him this time. The question's just forming in his mouth when he first notices Felix's shoulders trembling, then upon closer inspection sees that his whole body is shivering. It's weird because Felix's skin doesn't _feel_ cold, and Sylvain knows for a fact that Felix's demon body runs hotter than his own. But maybe it's like when humans eat a huge meal and all their blood rushes to their stomach, leaving the rest of their body colder for it.

Felix was right when he accused Sylvain of not knowing the first thing about succubus biology. He wants to learn, though. He wants to know more about Felix, but where would he start? 

Where would Felix let him in?

He gathers Felix closer against his chest, sealing their skin together heartbeat for thundering heartbeat. There's a throw blanket folded over the back of the couch two cushions away, and Sylvain hooks his finger on a corner of it, dragging it over to drape over Felix's body. He tucks in the corners to seal in their combined body heat.

Over Felix's shoulder, Sylvain spots the pocket-sized novella he'd abandoned on the coffee table in favor of helping Felix strip off his boots.

"So, did you read it? _The Little Prince_."

Felix nods.

"Was it as good as you remember?"

Sylvain feels Felix's eyelashes brush against his shoulder as he considers his answer. "Better," Felix mumbles.

"Yeah?" Sylvain smiles into his hair. "It's been a long time since I've read it. Probably since Ingrid gave me that copy."

"How many years ago was that?"

"Almost ten. When I turned 17."

"It'll be different," Felix says. "Good different. Sad different."

"Sad doesn't sound good," Sylvain says. 

"You'll get it when you read it."

"Almost sounds like 'you'll understand when you grow up,'" Sylvain chuckles. He leans his cheek against the crown of Felix's head. "I know you just finished rereading the whole thing, but if you'd brave the sad-good epiphanies with me…"

Felix nuzzles his face into the crook of Sylvain's neck, and shrugs. "I'm not going to read it aloud for you," he says, "but I'll listen."

Chapter 1 is only four pages with illustrations, but Felix is fast asleep by the end of it. It's just as well. This way, they have 26 more to look forward to.

* * *

There are countless examples of scenes about people waiting for the rain to pass. They stand under café awnings with the object of their affections at an arm's distance, letting the downpour drown out their whispered confessions. They sneak kisses in public behind their umbrellas. They seek shelter in conveniently placed sheds in the middle of nowhere, where they peel away at all their soaked clothing to wear their lover over their skin instead.

Khalid tells Sylvain that when he used to live in LA, where it rains maybe 10 days a year, people would routinely take days off just because it was raining. Ironically, things like this don't happen in Seattle, where it rains on more days than not. If a good drencher was enough to deter you from leading your normal life, no one would get anything done. 

Rain is simply a part of life around here, something people have learned to embrace and enjoy in their own way. On rainy days, Sylvain watches Annette line up her polka-dotted rubber boots under her desk, Hilda hang up her bright pink Kate Spade raincoat, and Linhardt space out at the shimmering beaded curtain veiled over the cityscape until his eyelids fall shut and he dozes off, still sitting upright in his chair. 

As with any other inconvenience in life, it'll turn into background noise if you just give yourself enough time to acclimate. If courage is the power to change things that cannot be accepted, then it is simply a matter of forbearance to accept the things that cannot changed—

Sylvain silences another call from his father.

—right?

* * *

Felix comes by once a week on Friday nights.

And so, like most people who work a normal nine-to-five, Sylvain starts to look forward to Fridays. It has nothing to do with how it precedes the weekend. In fact, Saturdays are the hardest: he will wake up rested and refreshed but alone in bed with the knowledge that it'll be another six full days before he sees Felix again. Sundays are a little easier because there's only five more days. Anticipation crescendos throughout the week until it's Friday again. Friday morning is no more than a passageway for the night. It's strange how smoothly your world begins to turn once you find its axis. 

With something to look forward to at the end of the day, Sylvain is in a good mood. He's motivated enough, even, to help Linhardt build the proposal he, Annette, and Hilda are submitting to the Board of Directors next week. Being entrusted with a project of this calibre at so early in their careers is an enormous amount of pressure, and it looks like they're all feeling it one way or another.

Sylvain's just here to lend a hand, though, so no such burden weighs on his shoulders. During one of their breaks, Linhardt catches him reading up about succubus lore on his phone. Linhardt tells him that, for grad school, he wrote a thesis entitled "Myth, Dream, and the Establishment of the Urban Consciousness," and Sylvain wonders for the nth time how they wound up doing the same job. But anyway, the conversation diverges to other mythical creatures, and then onto how their pasty Program Coordinator's definitely got some vampire in his blood (ha ha ha).

"Certainly looks he wants to take a bite out of that new guy," Sylvain says.

"Ah, the marketing specialist who just transferred in from the New York office?"

This must ping on Hilda's gossip radar because she comes sliding in out of nowhere, offering, "God, don't those two look like a couple straight out of a Victorian-era romance novel?"

They get so caught up in discussing scenarios of this hypothetical—but surely torrid—love affair that their 15-minute break turns into 35, and Annette has to come corral them back into the office like cows. When Sylvain logs back into his computer, he feels her peek briefly around their divider before sliding into her own cube. Then, she's back up again, coming up behind him to do a double take.

"Did you make that?" she asks, pointing to the graph on his screen.

Sylvain grins and folds his arms behind his head. "Yup. Cool color scheme, right?"

"Yeah…but how did you—" Annette frowns. "We've been trying to reformat the data for weeks, but the way we want it displayed isn't built into the software. How did you get it to do that?"

"Ah," Sylvain says, toggling over to another window. "Yeah, I had to put together a script for it."

Annette crowds in closer to squint at the markdown Sylvain pulled up. "I thought you were a _Communications_ major."

All things considered, Sylvain's more amazed than offended by the way Annette manages to make _Communications_ sound like _Basketweaving_ with just the inflection of her voice. "In freshman year, I took an intro to CS class and learned that coding is mostly just Googling how to code. So." He makes jazz hands at the screen.

Annette shoots Sylvain a wry smile, then sighs. "Well. That must be nice, to just be good at whatever you want to be good at."

Sylvain laughs but his smile feels painted on. "The only thing I'm good at is taking shortcuts," he tells her. "It's because there's people like you out there who put in the time to figure out the the hard stuff that I don't have to do it myself."

The noise in the office seems to fall to a hush as Annette stares at him, brows furrowed, biting her lip. Then, the usual chatter returns, and Annette says, "You should be there for the presentation." When Sylvain opens his mouth to protest, perplexed, she shakes her head. "You thought of a way to fix a problem none of us knew how to deal with. That's not nothing. We can't just take credit for your work, and you should be there to see the difference it makes."

Taking part in a high-profile project like this invites the sort of expectations he hates, and the way Annette had reacted is exactly why he doesn't like to stick out from the crowd. But when Annette apologizes for what she'd said earlier and shows him a sheepish, dimpled smile, Sylvain remembers that he's always been a little weak to cute.

The proposal Annette, Hilda, and Linhardt had built together was solid from the beginning, but after a weekend-long bout of overtime in which the four of them reconstruct the entire framework of the pitch, it's transformed into a tour de force just in time for the big meeting on Monday morning. Afterwards, they get an email from the director of their department, who gives them kudos on a job well done and hints that they'll likely get the official green light in a few days.

"All right," Hilda announces, standing up from her cube with her arms in the air, "party time."

The real party will have to wait until after the workday's over, of course, but they get into a festive spirit of things by first treating themselves to a fancy lunch at Pike Place. From their office, it's only a short 10-minute walk along streets lined with brick and cobblestone out to the pier.

Every year, for just one glorious week in March, Sylvain's told, Seattle is blessed with a fake mini-summer, during which the weather is in the 70s and the cloudless skies are blue as the prettiest cornflower. And so, they savor the rare sunbeams by picking a restaurant with outdoor seating and let the sea breeze whip their hair around as they fill their stomachs with delicious, greasy fried fish. After they've satisfied their appetite for seafood and the latest developments regarding their favorite Victorian-era couple, it's long past their lunch hour. They wave for the bill.

On their way out, Sylvain surveys the market, curious to chart the changes since the last time he was here around the end of autumn, when the weather took a real nosedive. His eye catches on a familiar figure standing behind the salmon counter.

The man is turned away toward the backroom, yelling something about filleting knives. His voice and proportions and the color his hair all point straight to one person, but Sylvain's head refuses to add up the evidence.

He tells the rest of the group that he's going to run to the restroom and they should go on without him. He watches them round the corner, then makes a beeline for the fish counter. 

"What's the catch of the day?" he calls out, and the man turns.

When Felix's copper-bright eyes meet his, the word _liminality_ floats to the surface of his mind. Seeing Felix here feels like being in a high school during the summer, or lingering too long in an empty hallway. It's the first time that Sylvain has seen Felix in the daylight, outside the realm of the bar or his bedroom, which might be the true liminal spaces of Felix's life. His readings had made him believe that when Felix wasn't out feasting on human desire, he would return home to the Underworld, but maybe this is why teachers warn against trusting Wikipedia.

"Oh." Felix blinks at him. "What are you doing here?"

"My coworkers and I had lunch," Sylvain says. "You work here?"

"No, I just like the aprons."

Sylvain gives Felix a slow once-over. He's wearing a black hoodie underneath the fish market apron, and from this angle, Sylvain can't tell what's going on below the waist, but he can only assume Felix ditched the thigh-highs today. "Not many people can pull off neon orange like you."

Felix rolls his eyes, but Sylvain doesn't miss the smirk creeping in from one corner of his mouth. "I knew I'd run into you around here sooner or later."

"Did you? To be honest with you, I'm still in a bit of shock," Sylvain says. "When I remember back to that night we first met, I thought I must've sounded so stupid, asking you what you did."

"You did," Felix says. "It wasn't the question, though, but the way you tossed it out like a hot potato."

"Well, you see, you're very hot," Sylvain begins to explain just as a woman with mint green hair comes up behind Felix. She nods hello at Sylvain.

"A friend of yours?" she asks Felix.

"Something like that."

The woman, who's wearing the same apron as Felix, starts to pull on a pair of blue rubber gloves. "Your shift's up."

Felix frowns at her. "I have 15 more minutes."

"You came in early this morning. Enjoy the sun and get yourself some ice cream."

The line between Felix's brows deepens.

"Yeah, come on, Felix." Sylvain pouts and makes his eyes very wide and round. "It's such a beautiful day. We _insist_."

Felix looks between Sylvain and the woman, who is expressionlessly hacking the heads off the fish into a bucket, and sighs. "Give me a minute to grab my stuff."

It takes, quite literally, only about a minute for Felix to re-emerge from the backroom, looking exactly the same, sans apron, and shouldering a small backpack. He waves the woman goodbye and makes his way toward Sylvain.

"You mentioned working in an office." Felix looks pointedly at Sylvan's crisp button-up and slacks. "Should you be wasting time here in the middle of a work day?"

Sylvain shrugs, walking with the flow of some tourists all wearing the same highlighter yellow t-shirt. He looks over his shoulder at Felix, who gets caught in the crowd, and slows his step so they can fall into pace next to each other. "Time spent with you is no time wasted."

Felix huffs. "Slacker."

Letting the insult roll off his shoulder, Sylvain says, "So, ice cream does sound pretty good. Is it that you don't need food, or that you can't have it?"

"I can."

"Oh, then—"

"But I don't like sweet things."

"Huh." Sylvain wonders what he tastes like to Felix. He's not sure he can handle the answer to that without gaining extra dimension in his well-fitted slacks, so he files the question away for later.

"I'll go with you, though," Felix offers.

"That's sweet of you." Sylvain smiles down at Felix, who marches on with his hands tucked into the kangaroo pocket of his hoodie. An inexplicable, insane urge to slip his own hand into that pocket and lace their fingers together sweeps through Sylvain.

_Crazy_. 

He tries to shake it off.

"Let's just walk around for a bit," Sylvain says. "I'm too full from lunch anyway."

Felix only hums in acknowledgement, and they lapse into silence.

The market is bustling with locals and tourists alike, all chattering and laughing and marveling at the weather today. They stroll past a gaggle of teenage girls giddily pick out handmade earrings on their right. On their left, a man is buying a spray of tulips for a woman who kisses him on the cheek, beaming bright and happy, when he hands them to her. Sylvain tries to imagine Felix reacting like the woman to something he did for him. It's a nice daydream, though certainly a hard sell.

At this point, the hallway splits into a four-way intersection, with one side leading out to the street, and the other toward a propped open door to the viewing deck. Sylvain nudges Felix toward the latter.

The upper patio is jam-packed with people, including a family of nine whose small children run in circles around their parents' legs, shrieking incoherently at the top of their lungs. Felix winces like he's in physical pain from the sight of them, or maybe just the decibel of their screams.

"Let's go downstairs," Sylvain suggests, tugging on Felix's arm. 

When they bump into each other going down the stairs, Sylvain notices that Felix smells different today, like the ocean: briny and a little fishy. It's not really sexy, but Sylvain feels butterflies flutter in his stomach just from learning something new about him.

Fewer people roam the lower level. The two of them wander down the deck away from the stairs and find their own section of the railing to lean their elbows on as they stare out at the ocean. Even though it's March, it truly does feel like a little glimpse of summer with the way the sky is so perfectly blue that you have to squint to make out where it borders the sea.

It still feels so surreal for Sylvain, being at the Market with Felix, though Felix seems perfectly at peace. He's simply watching the waves unfurl in the distance and letting the rays of the midday sun caress the lines of his profile. Sylvain's eyes follow the proud line of his nose, down around the sharp angle of his chin, then back up to the small moles dotting his left cheekbone. He's so beautiful it'll make you hurt just craving to learn his geometry. 

In the two months since they've met, Sylvain's lost count of the number of times he's had Felix in his arms, in his mouth, lost himself inside his body. But in that moment, there's nothing more he wants than to find touch Felix's cheek, hold his hand, and tell him how beautiful he is.

He doesn't, though, because people who are "something like" friends don't do that in broad daylight, when they don't have the excuse of being too sex-drunk to know any better. Sylvain thrusts his hands into his pants pockets and rocks on his heels. "So you really work here, huh."

Felix sighs. "You want an employee ID or something?"

There's no one close enough to eavesdrop on their conversation, but Sylvain drops his voice down to a whisper just in case, "Just wouldn't've thought that succubi worked day jobs, is all."

"I rent an apartment in the city, so I need a job to make rent," Felix replies.

"Ah," Sylvain says, processing this. "Finally moved out of your parents' place, huh."

Felix's huff of laughter isn't a thing of joy. "Something like that. Figured 857 was the age to do it."

Sylvain turns the number over in his head. Many, many times. He considers making a joke about cradle-robbing, but decides against it. It's the first time that Felix has talked about himself in any personal detail, and there won't be a second time if he feels like he's been made fun of for it. "What made you do it?"

"Freedom," Felix says without missing a beat.

"Freedom," Sylvain echoes slowly.

Felix picks at the skin around his fingernails, squinting out at the sun. "When you've been doing the same damn thing for centuries, you forget why you started in the first place. And I sure as hell wasn't going to find any answers sticking with people who went on blindly obeying the call of duty. I needed to get away and think for myself."

"I see," Sylvain says, though he doesn't, really. But in his mind's eye, there are the dairy cows and cornfields and all the irate voicemails that he still listens to even though he probably shouldn't. "Fishing is a good choice for that."

"Early mornings are peaceful," Felix says, then points a finger toward the horizon. "We set out before dawn, and by the time the nets are full, the sun's only just rising. Even when the weather's shitty, the sunrise is still pretty damn spectacular when you're out at sea."

With a jolt, it hits Sylvain that maybe the reason that Felix never stays until the morning is not entirely to maintain a certain sense of distance and detachment from their relationship. But if Felix truly wanted to stay, wouldn't he just come by on a different night when he didn't need to leave so early?

"If the Earth was smaller, you could follow the sun on your boat and just keep watching it rise forever," Sylvain says. Three nights ago, they'd read about how the Little Prince once saw the sunset forty-four times in one day by scooting his chair with the rotation of his home planet.

"Where's the wonder in something you can see any time? You'll just get sick of it," Felix says.

Sylvain asks, "Even if you love it?"

But Felix makes no reply.

* * *

The fox who appears in Chapter 21 teaches the prince how to tame him. 

"You must be very patient," he says. "I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day…"

Sylvain only sees Felix once a week—that doesn't change after their encounter at Pike—but the chapters are all short, and after the first few, they manage to get through at least two each week before one or both of them nods off. Recently, they haven't been wearing themselves out on the sort of marathon sex they'd had in the beginning. The sex is still intense and so good that Sylvain feels like he's shooting out brain matter every time, but nowadays they only go for a couple of rounds before Felix declares that he's full, and they crawl under the blankets together.

Sylvain suspects that Felix must be feeding on others throughout the week because according to Felix, he has a larger appetite than your dime-a-dozen succubus. Something about how you have to feed to be strong, and the stronger you grow, the more you have to feed.

It's fine that there are others. Sylvain is happy with their arrangement.

He wonders what they're going to do in six more chapters when they finish the book. Maybe they'll go out on a midnight drive. Maybe they'll pick up another story and find that it, too, is about waiting. Maybe Sylvain will kiss the nape of Felix's neck and stroke his horns and tail and scars and Felix's body will give a little quiver and Sylvain will whisper, "I feel myself tamed by you. What must I do to tame you in return?"

The last morsel of wisdom that the fox imparts on the prince in the closing lines of Chapter 21 is this: "It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important. You become responsible forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose…"

* * *

The cherry blossoms purse their pink lips. Salmonberries ripen. Work keeps Sylvain's mind active and occupied. He doesn't feel like he's drowning in the rain; he doesn't feel like playing with fire.

It's a good routine he has going with Felix. They make out. They fuck. Sylvain introduces him to a brand of spicy jerky that he takes to munching on as a post-coital snack. Felix stops feeling so self-conscious with his demon form and stays shape-shifted long after they're done fucking. Sometimes, when he's in a really good mood, he won't even hiss at Sylvain for playing with his tail while they talk about things like what the first 800 years of Felix's life was like (rivalry between succubi clans, and an endless war that sounds like the stuff of fantasy novels, and a brother he mentions only once) and what growing up in Wisconsin was like for Sylvain (dairy cows, and being able to get away with playing around all he liked as long as it was only with girls, and a brother he mentions only once).

They're now two chapters away from finishing _The Little Prince_. Felix was right: rereading the book as an adult feels different in ways that are both good and sad and make Sylvain's chest draw tight.

_One runs the risk of weeping a little, if one lets himself be tamed…_

He shuts the book and looks down at Felix, who peers up at him from his cocoon of blankets.

"You ever think about just feeding from one person?" Sylvain blurts. 

The first sign that he's said something fatally wrong is that Felix's horns begin to retreat back into his head. His eyes are neither red nor gold, but a dark dijon that reminds Sylvain of dead tree leaves whose only fate is to fall.

"It takes a lot to satisfy me," Felix says.

Sylvain should drop the topic. They have a good thing. Clearly, that means Sylvain must ruin it. "Do you not leave here feeling…satisfied?"

"You do fine."

"Wow. High compliments," Sylvain laughs.

Felix pushes up onto his knees, then disentangles himself from Sylvain, taking the blanket with him. He stands next to the bed with it draped over his shoulders. "Well, what do you want from me? I'm not one of your playthings that'll shout your praises to the sky."

Between the two of them, if anyone has _playthings_ right now, it's Felix. Sylvain hasn't been with anyone else since Fridays became theirs to share. He could tell Felix this, or he could try to wrap his tongue around a million other truths, but every one feels too honest for his stupid, liar's mouth.

"I don't want you to be," he settles for saying. "But...wouldn't it be easier if you didn't have to hunt for food all the time? If you could just trust someone to give you what you need?"

"And what," Felix says, dropping the blanket to the floor, "would you know about what I need?"

Panic courses through Sylvain. He reaches out a hand. "Felix, I'm sorry—"

But Felix twists out of reach, turning his back on him. He begins to pull on his clothes. "What are you even sorry for?"

"I—I didn't mean to hurt you, but—"

"I'm not hurt."

"Then why are you leaving?"

"I'm allowed to leave."

If Felix up and abandoned the place he called home for centuries, surely it is no problem for him to walk right out of Sylvain's life tonight. Sylvain wants to cry. 

_One runs the risk of weeping a little, if one lets himself be tamed…_

"Felix, please. Don't go."

"I have work," Felix says.

"It's barely even midnight."

Felix picks his jacket up off the floor. "Soon, it'll be Saturday."

There is no word in the English language that Sylvain hates more than Saturday and how it takes Felix away. "Can I…" He rises from the bed and inches toward Felix. Is it okay to touch him, or would that make things worse? "Can I take you, at least?"

Felix doesn't look at him. "If you want."

It's a strange feeling, having Felix in the passenger seat of his car for the first time and knowing that it'll also be the last. No conversation bridges the silence between them until Heart comes on the radio, and it's "Alone." Feeling it unbearable, Sylvain reaches over to turn it off when Felix says, "We could've just walked."

"The streets are so steep," Sylvain explains, when what he really means is _Then I can't drive in circles, convincing you to come back to me_.

In the end, he doesn't drive very many circles or make any good arguments. They pull to a stop in an empty parking lot at the pier. The ocean is a black tarp that conceals all its secrets. When the clocks strike zero, Felix doesn't move to get out of the car, but Sylvain feels no hope in this waiting game. No green light at the harbor.

They listen to the night radio like the man in "The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio," except it's not a hospital radio they're listening to; it's goddamn Heart again. Neither of them have a fractured leg, either, but Sylvain's heart feels like it's splintering down the middle, so that's something.

"I want to see the sunrise from the water," he says.

"Take a boat out," Felix says.

"I get seasick. You think it's worth it?"

"You see the sun before anyone else. For a little while, you get him all to yourself," Felix says.

"Ah. Good deal. Good deal." Swallowing the dry lump in his throat, Sylvain turns to Felix, wanting to take in every detail of his face even though what he truly wants is invisible to the eye. "The prince doesn't die, right? I remember now; I got to this same chapter the last time I was reading it. Then, my brother got disinherited and my life blew up."

"He doesn't die," Felix replies. Then, he says, "Look, there's the sun." Then, he finds Sylvain staring at him, and looks down at Sylvain's hands (still twitching to hold Felix's), and his chest (beating apart for the good thing that he had for a short little while).

"One more time," Felix says, then climbs over the gearshift.

Beyond his shoulder, when he comes, the ocean is on fire.


	2. cravings may

Dig a little deeper, and it turns out that everyone's a hobby astronomer. 

Maybe it doesn't come as a surprise that Leonardo da Vinci dabbled with theorizing the relationship between the sun and moon. The guy who drew the first map of Japan did so almost entirely by measuring the steps he took on the ground, but he could not have achieved the accuracy he did—down to 1/1000th of a degree—without looking to the sky for direction, too. A number of asteroids have been named in honor of _The Little Prince_ and its author, who dreamt up a golden-haired prince in a near fatal fit of heat stroke and dehydration after crashing in the Libyan Desert.

On account of being a hallucination, the prince does not get to stay with the self-insert narrator at the end of the story. He goes back to his home planet, supposedly. Long before planes and rockets and even the first telescopes, people have always been tracing the ones they loved and lost into the constellations. A foolish proclivity, but understandable.

Isn't it nice to think that the person you failed to save is living bright and beautiful up in a star, instead of burning in Hell?

* * *

Their clothes stay on, all except the jeans that Felix shucks before climbing over the gear shift. 

Sylvain watches him. He pushes his seat back as far as it'll go to make room, then wraps his hands around his thighs. His eyes are bright, and wanting, and full of a thing that makes Felix's chest burn. 

He follows Felix's rhythm, rocks into him. Felix's breath goes soft, eyes squeezing shut, face crumpling. When Sylvain begins to thrust with intent, he shoves back, clenching, sweating, grinding.

There's a brush of fingers along his hairline, wiping the sweat from his brow. Felix's gut twists. He sees Sylvain lick his lips. He wants to kiss, Felix realizes.

Sylvain is a lot of things. He's kind and sensitive and smart and dumb and fucking _chicken_. Felix crushes their mouths together. He doesn't let up until Sylvain grips his hips and angles a thrust exactly where he needs it. 

That's another thing: Sylvain likes to please him. Felix doesn't know what to do with that.

When they break for air, Sylvain's breath lands heavy on his collarbones. His arms wind around Felix's waist and hold him close.

"Felix," he whispers, and it sounds so much like "mine" that Felix can't make sense of how he can stand to say goodbye in the same sentence.

It's nearing morning, and Felix needs to get to work. He feels a burst of energy fill his core, though he hadn't even meant to feed.

Why didn't he mean to feed?

* * *

It's one thing to make a mistake, but it's another to keep making it. Felix knows better than anyone that caring is a thing with hooked claws: get attached, and you might as well admit that you're going to get torn to pieces. All you ever really have is yourself.

Felix finishes zipping up his pants and tugs the hem of his shirt down over the top of his glowing crest. When he flits a look at Sylvain, he catches him staring wordlessly at the blue light. Felix hesitates for another moment because, clearly, being full in the stomach means that he's fucked in the head.

Just as he reaches for the door, a hand darts out to grip his arm.

"Come on a date with me," Sylvain says, suddenly.

Felix refuses to look at him. "I'm not going to your place anymore."

"I'll come to you."

Sylvain's hand on his arm weighs firm and heavy as an anchor. "What do you even want from me?"

"I'm not trying to take a thing from you, Felix," he says. "I just like being with you."

"Even if you're not the only one I feed from."

"Are there others?"

Felix is looking out at the dock. "What's in it for you?"

Sylvain says, "Well, for one, you're crazy hot." He performs a half-hearted laugh. But when Felix turns to meet his eye, his expression sobers. 

The grip on Felix's arm tightens, then gentles, sliding down to hold his wrist loosely.

"Do you ever feel like you're still waiting for your life to begin?" Sylvain says. "Waiting to become something more, more than this paper-thin version of yourself, to feel like you're deserving of…I don't know. Just—deserving, period. If I died tomorrow, I'd have spent my whole life waiting for it to start. I think about that sometimes."

"In the end, it's all about waiting and dying with you, isn't it," Felix says.

When Sylvain forces a smile, Felix hurts. "There's always that moment in movies, you know, when the main character has that Big Moment, and suddenly their entire life is reframed around it. So, I keep wondering, where's my moment? Was it ever going to happen? Or was I going to go back to Wisconsin, take over Gautier Foods, make some kids with a good woman my parents chose for me—and then, what? That'd just be it? There has to be more than that." 

Resentment threads his brows together, and something red and bitter beads in his eyes. Felix sees the anger in him and feels his own steam out, as if one fire can be burned out by another.

"I can't read Hemingway anymore without getting frustrated," Sylvain says. "What does it matter if the sun also rises, if I'll never see it from a tiny boat on the sea with you?"

There isn't anyone else.

That's the answer to Sylvain's question.

That's why Felix should flee the car right this instant and sail away. He would sooner die than grow attached and be left to rot.

And yet, when Sylvain draws him in by the hand, Felix goes to him, lets his eyes fall closed when Sylvain kisses him. He tastes like fire and nostalgia. Even at the height of his strength, Felix had never been able to wield fire. He wonders if there's a part of him that's always been chasing its heat.

"Come on, Felix. Say yes to the date," Sylvain whispers against his lips. "Seven billion people out there, and you spend every Friday with me. That has to count for something."

Felix sighs into another kiss.

Maybe it does.

* * *

When Felix gets home, an unfamiliar rose-scented perfume assaults his senses. Khalid is in the living room with a book open in his lap and two glasses of wine perched on the side table next to him. With their opposite schedules and all the covert missions Khalid goes on, they hardly ever run into each other at home. He hates owing Khalid more than he already does, but the man is conveniently present and _occasionally_ helpful, so Felix decides to try his luck.

He regrets it the instant he sees Khalid's green eyes glimmer. "A date?"

"Never mind." Felix makes to flee for his room.

Waving him back, Khalid says with a laugh, "No need to be shy, roomie." Felix turns slowly, distrustfully, keeping his distance. "It's going well with Sylvain, huh."

"Who says this is about him?"

Khalid levels a look at him. "It's been months, Felix. I think it's okay to admit you like the guy."

"He's a good meal. Isn't that what you told me when you pointed him out?"

" _Pretty_ sure all I said was that he'd be good for you."

"What's the difference?"

Khalid's eyebrows shoot up and bring Felix's irritation with them. "Oh, boy."

"What the fuck does that mean," Felix snaps.

Holding up both hands in defense, Khalid backpedals, "Okay, okay. The date, yeah? Let's take it one thing at a time."

Felix lets his shoulders drop. "Then don't say stupid shit."

" _Sure_ ," Khalid agrees cheerily. He dog-ears the page he's on, then closes the book, strumming his fingers across the cover. "I've recently been informed by an…acquaintance that there are three possible parts to a proper date." He ticks them off on his fingers: "Entertainment, food, and affection."

"Affection," Felix echoes flatly.

"It's all about the balance, see. Lean heavy on the entertainment in the beginning. Find something fun to do together. It'll stand in for the affection, which takes time to build. But eventually, affection turns into the entertainment itself, and that's when, you know…" Khalid waves his hand, like that's supposed to mean anything.

"And how," Felix grits out, face heating, "am I even supposed to know what _affection_ looks like?"

Curiosity crosses Khalid's expression. Felix wills a hole to open up in the floor so he can slam-dunk his roommate into it. Not that it even fucking matters, but Khalid manages to paint over his pensive look with an approximation of casual detachment.

He replies, "Oh, you'll know. If you're paying attention, you can't miss it."

* * *

So there's that. 

But when Felix really thinks about it, he realizes he isn't sure what entertainment looks like for humans nowadays, either. A lot has changed. No one knows how to ride a horse anymore, for one. Everyone looks down at their phone instead of up at the sky when they're trying to find their way around.

Meanwhile, things in the Underworld remain mind-numbingly constant. War was all the rage. It'd been everyone's favorite game for millennia. It sounds like maybe humans aren't all that different in this regard, but at least, here, Felix is not a pawn in someone else's scheme. His life is his own.

Still, there are times he aches for a fight just to remember what his strength is worth. With each passing day, he feels his touch for magic fading. He's already relinquished his wings, lost control over his corporeal form—what's next?

On the days his craving for combat is particularly potent, he heads to the gym down the block. There, he seeks out a boxer with sky blue hair, whose greatest fault as a human being is that he won't stop showing Felix "cute" pictures of his fiancé napping. Otherwise, he's a damn good sparring partner.

One the way home from the gym, the sun is a claw over the horizon, the clouds dyed pomegranate pink. It's almost time for Sylvain to pick him up for their date. Felix turns Khalid's three-component theorem over in his head again. It sounds fishier with every iteration.

In front of the elevators in his apartment building, he nearly crosses paths with his new next-door neighbor. The man is unmistakable with a lion's mane of ginger curls rippling down his back. Felix takes a sharp turn left toward the stairs.

But too late, he's already been spotted.

The neighbor—Fredrick? Fernando? Felix recalls only the unreasonable volume at which he'd announced his surname—politely pesters him the whole three flights up about where he's just returned from (the gym), which gym he attends ( _attends_ ), and if he would recommend their services. Felix replies in the negative to his last question, nipping at the bud further engagement with another over-friendly carrot top. He's got enough of them in his life, between his customer at the fish stand who hums little tunes to herself while perusing the catch of the day, the bartender at Failnaught who has recently moved from offering him thrifty tips to recruiting him to her mixed martial arts dojo—

—And Sylvain, who is already waiting at his door.

Felix vaguely registers Frederick-or-Fernando bidding him farewell in the background as the world focuses down to a single sunbeam. Sylvain is leaned up against the doorframe, his long legs crossed at the ankle. He's wearing a pair of perfectly polished brown leather shoes. The open collar of his crisp button-up reveals a smattering of freckles across the collarbones. His shirtsleeves are rolled neatly up to the elbows, and in his arms, a wild bloom of flowers drips out of the white tissue paper it's swaddled in.

The flowers kill the mood a bit. Topping the list of human things Felix detests: cut flowers. People buy them by the dozen at the market, but what's the point? They're useless. Dead within days.

As Felix comes to a stop in front of him, Sylvain looks up from his phone and smiles, gives a little wave. "Hey," he says. "How's it going?"

"You're early," Felix says, digging out his keys.

"Last meeting of the day got cancelled." Sylvain steps out of his way, eyeing Felix's bag. "Just getting back from the gym?"

Grunting in reply, Felix pushes open the door and dumps his duffel next to the shoe rack. He glances back at Sylvain, who's nosily peering into the apartment. "Gonna change. I'll only be a second." His gaze drops down to the bouquet of flowers; he frowns. "This is paper."

"Origami," Sylvain confirms. "I have a coworker who's into crafts, and we took a long lunch on Wednesday." He offers out the bouquet to Felix. "They're for you."

Felix takes them, furrowing his brow. "Okay."

Sylvain laughs. "Don't make that face, Felix! You don't even have to take care of them. They can just sit there and look pretty. Very low maintenance. Besides"—he plucks at a pink tulip—"they have date ideas on the inside so we won't get stuck trying to decide what to do next."

Lightbulb. 

_Entertainment._

Felix doesn't realize he's said this aloud until Sylvain tilts his head at him, and he flushes darker than the flower in Sylvain's hand. But Sylvain only smiles, reaching out to brush a stray strand of hair away from Felix's face.

"I'll make this fun for you," he says. "Trust me."

Felix's eyes are dead-bolted to the ground, but he can feel the weight of Sylvain's gaze on him. For an extended moment, he stands there with Sylvain at the threshold of his well-guarded independence and a new craving growing wild as a weed inside him. He stands there, and he lets the perfume of Sylvain's scent and the warmth of his touch wash over him.

It's not life or death. Just entertainment, food, and affection.

Right?

* * *

Felix mentions, off-handedly, that he has a bike. It's electric blue and sleek as an arrow with a sculpted chrome-finished frame that tapers to a point in front to reduce wind resistance. Less of a pain to find parking for than Sylvain's car, he promotes, but what he really means to say is that it's fucking _cool_.

The way the air hits him when he's zipping around on his bike reminds him of flying. That's why he first took a liking to it. Although, he'd discovered fairly quickly that he had to recalibrate his entire sense of balance and understanding of aerodynamics to lean into the turns properly and climb the steep hills of the city. It irks him a little (a lot), how much of a natural Sylvain is at all this. He's loose and relaxed behind Felix, rolling his weight with the curves and bumps and slopes.

"Are you sure you've never ridden before?" Felix grumbles.

Sylvain replies, "Only horses. Two very different beasts, both sexy," and spends the next half hour fondly recounting stories about the mares that he used to take around the backwoods of the Gautier estate.

So, it's like this that they map the city: Felix in the driver's seat and Sylvain riding pillion with his arms secured around his waist, the heat of his body pressed against Felix's back. They sometimes talk and sometimes don't. Sylvain's hands rarely behave, which is a thrill that Felix doesn't hate.

Not every destination is a hit (Felix almost gets into a fight with the petting zoo animals, and Sylvain gets sick on the ferry), but just as advertised, there isn't a dull moment on their Friday night treks. The first tulip takes them to an axe-throwing gym where they run into Sylvain's very pink crafty friend from work and are thoroughly, _inexplicably_ destroyed by her in the public tournament. The week after that, they repair their prides by setting a new record at a medieval-themed escape room game. The week after _that_ , they unleash Felix's surprising talent and unsurprising impatience for ballroom dancing. The highlight of the current week so far was discovering claw machines filled with giant dildos in the basement of a gay bar in Capitol Hill. For all their efforts, they walk away with 12 sparkly inches of silicone dick, then spend the rest of the night negotiating who is going to carry it around.

"You're being a sore loser," Felix bites out.

They're finally home, now, after the long night out, and Sylvain is between his legs, intent on driving him to insanity with his tongue.

"Me? _Never._ " Sylvain mumbles with his mouth full. "I very graciously took my third leg in stride."

" _That_ "—Felix jerks his chin at the abandoned dildo on the floor—"is your fourth leg, fuck you."

Sylvain winks. "Hey thanks, sweetie."

"Don't call me that," Felix snaps. "And stop being an asshole and let me—" He cuts off with a gasp, hips jerking off the bed. He shouts out a curse when Sylvain kneads his fingertips against the same spot a second time.

"Though…" Sylvain considers, like they're discussing whether to eat out or order in; plenty clear which one he decided on. "I guess it was pretty embarrassing when that kid started shrieking about how he wanted a big boy lightsaber like mine."

"Well, you certainly handled it well," Felix huffs.

"Aww, look who's deciding to play nice," Sylvain croons. "You want a treat, baby?"

The answer at the tip of Felix's tongue is _piss off_ , but he's dripping into the growing wet spot under his ass, and his cunt is clenching pathetically around Sylvain's three fingers. He thumps a testy rhythm against the mattress with his tail.

Sylvain pays it no attention, waiting patiently.

Fucker. Felix whips his head to the side. "Fine," he relents.

He feels Sylvain's smile curving against his mound when he lowers his head again. "We can work on your manners another night," he mumbles before kissing Felix's clit. Then, he opens his mouth and sucks all of Felix's hostile protests away. 

He's got one thigh through over his shoulder, and he plants a palm on the inner side of the other, keeping Felix's legs open as Felix begins to tense. He's already close, so close, _been_ close for what feels like hours. There's a tight swell of tendons, blood rushing heated and urgent in his veins. The relief that hits is instant and overwhelming.

Felix presses so hard into Sylvain's mouth he doesn't know how he can breathe, but Sylvain is unrelenting under him, hands gripping his hips. His mouth doesn't falter for a moment through Felix's climax and doesn't let up after it's over. But Felix is far from satisfied, and Sylvain seems to know this. Felix wonders when he learned to read his tells.

He moves his hands from the pillow to Sylvain's head, fingers slipping into his hair, gripping it. He begins to rock into his mouth, onto his fingers, but his cunt is a slick, sopping mess, and he can't seem to get the friction he needs.

"More," he pants. "Come on, _come on_."

Sylvain tilts his head, pulling free for a second, panting hot breaths over Felix's mound. Felix watches a thread of spit or come run from between his legs to Sylvain's mouth, the slickness visible in the dim light.

"More sucking? Licking?"

" _Inside,"_ Felix says, clenching emphatically.

"You want more fingers?" Sylvain sounds surprised by this. "That's practically my whole hand."

"You can stick your whole fucking arm in there, I don't _care,_ just give me more," Felix growls.

Sylvain chuckles quietly. "C'mon, Felix..."

"What."

A beat.

"Oh. You're serious. I didn't think—" Sylvain looks down at his own hand. "A whole arm?"

Felix narrows his eyes at him. "It was my job to entertain people's darkest, most depraved fantasies. An arm is nothing to blink twice at."

He watches Sylvain process this. All silence and no action. It's torture.

Finally, Sylvain meets his eye again. When he speaks, his voice is serious. "You'd tell me if you didn't enjoy anything we did, right?"

"Like what?"

"Anything. You wouldn't do something you didn't want just because you knew I wanted it?"

"Frankly, I don't know what you want," Felix tells him. Is this true? He corrects himself: "I think you want what I want. It's troublesome."

At this, Sylvain laughs. "Well, sorry for the heartache, sweetheart. But let's be honest, now. I think you like being taken care of."

"Like hell I—" He chokes out a groan as Sylvain rubs his thumb into his clit, fingers curling up against where Felix is most sensitive inside. The groan turns into a whine when, inside of thrusting back in, he withdraws his fingers altogether.

"No need to get embarrassed," Sylvain goes on, repositioning Felix on the bed so that he's face down, ass up. "Isn't that all anyone ever wants? To be taken care of?"

"If you're a fucking houseplant," Felix mumbles into the pillow, cheeks on fire, "or a pet."

"Well, you do have a tail." Sylvain strokes a loose fist down the length of it from base to tip.

Felix lets out a gasp and trembles, oversensitive. "Shut up," he pants. "Just shut up and fuck me. You wanna please me so bad? Fuck me for real."

This seems to hit a switch in Sylvain, who huffs a laugh through his nose and growls softly. " _Really_ gotta work on those manners."

Victory thrills through Felix's veins when Sylvain presses a hand between his shoulder blades and slams inside. This is what he asked for. Sylvain fucking him so hard, Felix is climbing up the headboard. It's a flimsy thing, not even real wood, and it rattles against the wall.

"Good thing your roommate's never home, huh," Sylvain murmurs against his neck. 

His hand moves from Felix's back to his hips, readjusting the angle. As everything gets hotter, faster, he presses his teeth in Felix's shoulder, and Felix's breath escapes hissed, rapid. Sylvain is fucking Felix the way he's always wished he would: rougher and rougher with each thrust, deeper and harder and sharper, and Felix's voice gets ripped out of him like a serrated knife.

"Touch me," he cries, when they're pressed together, two wet, slick bodies.

Sylvain is already there. He rubs two fingers over his clit, doesn't even start off easy. Felix is too wet for easy. He throws his head back. His voice goes rougher, ragged, tormented. Sylvain bites hard on the back of his neck, and Felix sees lights behind his eyes.

"Baby," Sylvain says. "Tell me what you want."

Felix should praise him or punch him. Every thrust of his hips punches the air out of Felix's lungs, so fast, so good, that Felix can barely hear, barely think, barely feel anything but this. The words that tumble from his lips are stuttered and hard and uncoordinated. He's not sure they're words at all, but Sylvain seems to get his meaning. He takes away the arm holding Felix against him, moving his hand up to grip at a horn. Shame and vulnerability swirl together in a whirlpool that threatens to tow him under.

Sylvain asks, "Like that? That good for you, sweetheart?"

"Yes," Felix wrings out. "Fuck, Sylvain, _fuck fuck_ _fuck,_ fuck me just like that, come on, come on _—_ "

He doesn't even realize Sylvain was still holding anything back until he lets the weight of his body fall on Felix, trapping him up against the headboard. He flexes his hips harder, moves his fingers faster between Felix's legs. He gives Felix nowhere to go, nothing to do but just take it. He fucks him, and fucks him, and fucks him, until Felix's whole body becomes one organ, and the noise coming out of his mouth is a big breath, then practically a scream. 

White heat descends.

Felix's eyes flutter open, and there's nothing but a blank wall in front of him, and Sylvain's arms around him, the rush of energy coursing through him. He's taken more than Sylvain has to part with, he's sure. There's too much, it's too intense. 

Sylvain whispers something into his skin, but Felix is trying to say something himself.

Darkness drowns out their words.

* * *

Murky, stenching waters.

Felix hates getting wet, but here he is, waist-deep in this swamp, with undead bodies drowning around him, mouths full of coins. Once in a while, one of the sullen bastards grab at him, burbles something incoherent. A fresh spawn of beasts is wading in this direction, so Felix better figure out how to extricate himself from the mud soon. He'd fallen in avoiding a blast of magic that would've sent him rocketing to another whole other circle of Hell, and he wasn't keen on getting to know the rapists on Eight or the politicians down on Nine.

"Fuck off!" he shouts, slicing off a pair of hands on his thigh with a sharp beam of light. He needs to get out of here.

It's funny that he ended up here on Five with this river. It always reminds him of this time from long ago, so long ago, when he'd snuck after his brother into the woods behind the palace. He always got left behind, and he was sick of it. Ladies were stuck in waiting. Boys went places, battled the dragons.

The boys Glenn played with took turns cannonballing into the lake off a high rock on the bank. The more dramatic the landing, the louder the crowd cheered. 

Well, Felix could do that. He'd show them his potential, earn their respect. He shed his garbs behind the tall shrubbery and took a breath, preparing for a running start. There were too many of them around the high rock to get through unobstructed. He aimed for an adjacent take-off point; not as well-elevated, but it'd do.

The group of them were still laughing and shouting when he first emerged from the forest. By the time his feet hit the rock, there was silence. 

Glenn's voice: "Felix, no!"

But he was already sailing through the air. He hugged his legs to his body, closed his eyes, held his breath. The impact seared his shoulders as he entered the water: the first hint that he'd rotated mid-air. The water was shallow under the rock he'd leapt from. His head throbbed, and his ears were ringing. When he cracked open his eyes under water, the world was a blurry pink. He opened his mouth to cry, but his lungs filled with water.

Hands. One on each elbow. Arms. Wrapped around his waist. Air. Two voices in his ears. One was Glenn, and the other…

_"Felix… Felix..."_

He ended up being fine that day. Nothing some bandages and bedrest couldn't fix. The scolding and nagging were worse because they lasted longer. At least Glenn finally agreed to spar with him. He sparred with him until he made him cry. Then, Felix sat on the sidelines and watched their golden-haired prince hold his own against Glenn and cried again.

Felix grew up with two brothers. 

Strictly speaking, one was his prince. But they were brothers, and that was the truth of the matter. Though it wasn't under the terms that Felix would have chosen for himself, it didn't feel wrong when they became family. They were family and that's what mattered.

Family protected each other. That's why he offered himself to the reaper, shook hands with Edelgard; why he seduced men who disgusted him; why he spent centuries in a filthy river, battling monsters.

So, it's not that Felix has never known affection. But his twenty years of living with it were well eroded by the 800-odd years of subsisting without it. Loneliness washed in; then rage; then hurt; then—

Water, water, everywhere.

This water smells clean. Where was the mud? The stench? Was Glenn going to swoop in at the last minute like the perfect knight, even as he corrupted good men and stole their souls?

"Felix...wake up."

That's not Glenn. The voice is coming from his left side, so close that hot breath tickles the fine hairs on his ear. He blinks open his eyes and sees beige. Bathroom tiles: there's one with a chipped corner. When he turns his head, it takes a moment for the colors to take shape. Brown eyes, sun-bright curls. Sylvain's expression is hard to read for a moment, then it softens to a smile when he sees Felix's eyes focus.

"There you are, sweetheart," he says. "Where did you go?"

Felix looks down, bites his lip. His legs are pulled up to his chest, arms loose around them. It's like he just landed that cannonball. But he's not helpless and hurting under the water; Sylvain's body envelopes his, and their heads are above water.

"How did I get in here?"

"I carried you," Sylvain says.

Felix assesses the energy zipping through his core, sees the bright blue glow of his crest. "How did you manage that? I took so much from you. You should be passed out."

"You were the one who passed out," Sylvain corrects, but he's not doing it to be a smartass. "You were shivering, and I couldn't get you to stop. And then you started—" Felix watches the knob of his throat bob up and down. "You scared me, sweetheart."

Red glowing eyes, claws, sucks the life force out of men, and this is what scares him? 

"I'm fine," Felix says, but Sylvain doesn't look convinced. "It's not because I'm cold. My body's just confused by the feeding stuff. Flesh forms are inconvenient like that."

Sylvain's arms tighten around him. He sighs. "Well, I think you've got a damn fine one. And I wish I'd have known better than to boil us both alive in the bathtub for nothing. At least we can get clean while we're in here, I guess."

Felix follows Sylvain's line of vision, aimed at the bar of soap resting in the shower niche all the way on the other side of the tub.

"I hate getting wet," he says.

Felix feels Sylvain smile into his hair. "Hmm. Does that make you a cat, or just a sulky child?"

"I keep telling you that I'm a succubus."

"You're that, too. Very strong, very sexy, very horny." Sylvain smoothes a finger down the curve of one horn. Felix shudders, cheeks heating at the memory of what he'd asked Sylvain to do to him. It's too soon for teasing; Felix's preference is _never_. The tone of the touch changes as it lands on Felix's face, over the side that's half-turned toward him. He draws the backs of his fingers up the line of Felix's cheekbone. 

"It's just hard to think of you as any one of those things when you're so true to being Felix," Sylvain says. "No one does Felix like you do."

When Felix turns to look at him, he finds Sylvain already looking back. His butterscotch eyes burn brittle-bright, sucking all the oxygen out of the room. Breathing becomes a belabored effort when, all of a sudden, Felix is paying attention. He notices.

It's the way Sylvain says his name like it's safe inside his mouth. It's the way he holds Felix against his chest like he's holding in his heart. It's the way Felix sees in the reflection of Sylvain's eyes a better person than who he thinks he is.

Khalid was right. It's impossible to miss.

* * *

Feelings are distracting. Felix cuts his finger with the flaying knife in front of his red-headed customer at work on Tuesday. She offers him a Band-Aid with little music notes on them. He tells her that they have a First Aid kit in the back, but she insists.

He peels back the Band-Aid later that night and sees that the cut has already begun to close. In two days, it'll form a scab. It might leave a scar. Before he reclaimed his corporeal form, his wounds would fade before he could properly take stock of them. Felix doesn't hate having scars on his body. Easier to make sense of the pain this way.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a familiar shadow lingering by his window. "What do you want," he sighs.

Glenn materializes fully. His dark wings flutter delicately as he floats into the room. "Is that any way to greet your brother?"

"Go to hell," Felix says.

"Oh, don't you worry, I'm on my way home. Just wanted to check in on my cute little brother. See if you're still having fun pretending to be human." Glenn smirks at him like an asshole. Fucking asshole. "Heard that you've been playing with your food recently. Tsk tsk. Where are your manners?"

Felix jerks up in bed, hands curled into fists by his side. "Where did you hear that?"

He can tell from the way Glenn's eyes light up in interest that he's given away too much with his reaction. "Huh. You like this one?"

"Don't you dare touch him," Felix threatens.

Glenn's smirk sharpens. "What's so special about him?"

"He's—" Felix doesn't know what to say. He has too much to say.

Leaning in close, Glenn asks, "Is he _yours_?"

Felix flinches. "I don't have anyone like that."

"Really." Glenn lifts his eyebrows, unimpressed. He backs off, which is good because what he says next makes Felix lunge at him, and the distance gives him just enough of an advantage that Felix misses.

Felix lands with his elbows on the floor. His stomach is a boiling cauldron of rage. "Don't _ever_ say that name to my face again."

Glenn stares down at him. Is that pity or regret in his eyes? After 800 years, he thought he knew who his own brother was. But he'd been proven wrong when they'd finally defeated the archdemon Rhea, when Edelgard had freed all the converted mortals—and Glenn had refused to leave the Underworld with him.

"Do you remember Father telling us that Fraldarius were born for Blaiddyd?" Glenn asks.

Felix grinds his teeth. He's just _looking_ for a fight. What right does he have, coming here to turn over this shit again—

"I think he was trying to give us a compass," Glenn says. "A purpose. He saw it as an honor to live his life that way, and he wanted us to see that, too."

Felix almost laughs. "The old man's been dead for centuries. You can save your perfect son act."

Glenn's eyes flash, flammable. Felix thinks that Glenn is going to set him on fire. Fucking fine by him. He holds his ground. But then, as Glenn slowly closes his eyes, the anger bleeds out of him. His long, inky hair falls over the corners of his wry smile.

"You did a noble thing, Felix," he says. "That may not mean anything to you, but Father would have been proud of you."

"I didn't do it to make anyone proud."

"That's what makes you good," Glenn says. "But it'd be foolish for you to expect that the sacrifices you make for another person will change their life."

There's a bitter pill lodged in the back of Felix's throat. It sits there dry; burns and burns and burns. He tries to swallow it down, but it doesn't budge. He turns his face away.

Do you stop caring for someone because they disappoint you? Probably not. You give your soul for his life, and he lets himself go mad with bloodlust. You give your soul to keep him by your side, and he lets you go like you're not worth a damn. But still, you care, so you hurt.

Glenn says, "I still believe in him," and it doesn't surprise Felix at all. This is the way it was always meant to be.

"He's no better than a beast," he says.

"Some beasts can be tamed" Glenn says.

"You just said that it'd be foolish to—"

Laughter splinters out of Glenn. His eyes bleed blue in the darkness, bright with resolve. "Stupid runs in the family, I guess."

* * *

In the '50s Felix was assigned to corrupt the golden boy of Australian politics. Longest two weeks of his existence. The man was yet another in a long line of hobby astronomers. His idea of foreplay was showing Felix stars in his telescope, which you would think would put a person in a certain type of mood. But see:

"You know, Felix, nothing is as it appears. See those two bright points up there? That's Alpha Centauri. Actually, there's three of them. A triple star system. But the third star, Proxima, is too small and faint to see. It orbits the other two from a distance. If it gets too close, it'll be ejected from the system altogether. Isn't that sad?"

Yeah. It fucking was.

After Felix had broken him down—daddy issues; what else is new—and stolen his soul, he'd crossed off the entire southern hemisphere from his working perimeter altogether. North of the equator, it's near impossible to see Alpha Centauri. In Seattle, you can give up on seeing the stars altogether, between the light pollution and ever-present rain clouds. That's what's great about this place.

The forecast had predicted a downpour this Friday, so he and Sylvain had ditched the bike in favor of Sylvain's car, but it's turning out to be a perfectly clear, beautiful spring evening. Felix rolls down the window and sticks his arm out through it as they roll along the highway headed south. Felix isn't sure where they're going, and he feels at peace with this.

Ten miles till Tacoma. The stars blink in the dark wash of the sky above. Sylvain turns the steering wheel with one hand, and the road ahead narrows. He pulls up to a closed gate. Tall trees stand guard on either side of the pebbled path ahead.

"Let's go," Sylvain says, cutting the ignition. The headlights stay on, the only thing illuminating their surroundings.

Felix is almost impressed that Sylvain has the guts for such a foray until he realizes that Sylvain's plan doesn't involve stumbling through a dark forested area late at night. He opens up a sleeping bag from the trunk over the still-warm hood of the car and hops up on it, extending a hand out to Felix. Felix looks at it flatly; Sylvain drives a _sports car_ , so it's not like there's even a climb. But he takes it anyway, lets Sylvain pull him up and into his arms.

"Wow, this is shockingly, insanely uncomfortable," Sylvain laughs when he lays back. He knocks the back of his head against the windshield.

Felix, whose head is cushioned on Sylvain's bicep, is plenty cozy where he is. "You want to switch?"

"Maybe in a bit," Sylvain says, shoving an arm beneath his own head. He grabs the light windbreaker he'd shed and drapes it over the both of them.

Felix smells the scent of his deodorant mixed with clean sweat. He wiggles closer, slinging an arm across Sylvain's torso. Sylvain had gone home to change today; he's wearing a black band t-shirt and faded blue jeans instead of his usual button-up and slacks. His shirt is tight across the chest, and Felix feels the same, just looking at him.

Above them, the full moon swings in a hammock of stars. Felix had tried counting them once, to pass the time. If nothing else, immortality offered plenty of time. No better way to make yourself feel small than to take inventory of everything else out there. Felix lost patience around 300 and headed out to hunt himself a little snack.

He asks Sylvain, "You're not secretly into astronomy, are you?"

Sylvain's mouth slants into a lopsided smile. "No, but I'm very good at faking it." When Felix makes a questioning noise, he leans into his ear, makes his voice all low and syrupy-smooth. "Oh, sweet honey, when we make love tonight, should we burn slow and long like a red dwarf, or fast and fierce like a blue giant? Or are we supernovas, exploding together?"

"That's appalling," Felix says.

The rumble of Sylvain's laughter vibrates against Felix's cheek. "Right? You'd be surprised how many people eat it up, though." 

Felix can't remember Sylvain ever using a fruity line on him. Was it simply that Sylvain knew it wouldn't work in his favor with Felix (correct), or that he didn't feel like he had to use pretenses when they were together? Contemplating the latter makes the stupid pounding thing in Felix's chest climb up to his throat.

"So," Sylvain says, jerking his chin at the sky, "which one of these do you think is B612?"

The planet the little prince lives on.

"B612 isn't real," Felix says.

"That's what the racist Astronomical Congress people said!"

"You're white."

"Technicalities. Come on, which one?"

Felix sighs. "Why are you like this."

"The annoying bits of my personality are a necessary evil to balance out the overwhelming amount of handsome and charming. You know you dig it."

_Fuck me_ , Felix thinks. He does. He kind of really does.

Enough silence passes, and Sylvain turns to look at him. Whatever he finds there makes him swallow audibly. Felix is staring through the trees, thinking about how he'd once torn through a forest much like this and cannonballed himself into a mild concussion. 

He'd survived that.

For the longest time, he resigned himself to the fact that life as he'd known it was over. He traded Mercedes his wings for his original human form, sure. There's red running in his veins, a ceaseless pounding thing in his chest, sure. So long as he keeps feeding, he won't ever die.

But spending time with Sylvain like this every Friday means—a shade of _happiness_ he'd forsaken for good. It's not that he ever intended to be alone. Who ever did? If you meet a person who tells you that they enjoy solitude, what they really mean is that they can't do casual for shit; that they never learned how to care in moderation; that they can't share their heart with someone without giving it away altogether.

Sylvain swore that he isn't here to take a thing from him. It's in the nature of succubi to be selfish and greedy, to cheat and seduce and steal—but how is it fair that Sylvain gets to provide the entertainment and food _and_ affection while Felix just takes freely?

What Felix is about to give him isn't any of those things, but it's the best he's got.

Closing his eyes, he takes a breath and murmurs, "I used to know a prince."

* * *

Felix grew up with two brothers. They were family, and family belonged to each other.

So why did it feel like he was the hanger-on in the triple star system, orbiting the central pair from a distance?

What he did on the night of the assassination was not, as Glenn suggested, an act of honor. He saw the Death Knight with his own eyes, and when he bargained, he was presented with an opportunity. If he gave up his soul, no one had to die—not in any way that mattered. If he chose to save them, then they might choose him in return.

"It was too late for Glenn," Felix continues, "They'd already sold off his soul by the time I got there. But for the prince who'd become king…for—"

He clenches his fists. He can't control the feelings that well up inside him; he hates that.

"For Dimitri?"

Felix's eyes fly open. He jerks his head up so fast he almost clips Sylvain in the chin. "How do you know that name," he demands, too sharp.

"You were mumbling it in the bath after you passed out that one time." Sylvain offers him a smile. "I wondered if maybe he was someone else you fed from. Your Tuesday guy, maybe. But clearly, he was so much more than that to you."

He's misunderstood. Everyone always does.

"It's not like that," Felix says.

Conflict crashes across Sylvain's features. "You don't have to mind my feelings."

"And there isn't anyone else," Felix tells him.

It takes a moment for Sylvain to understand what he's talking about. He makes a face like he's just been told that the sky is green and the grass purple. "Oh."

"Dimitri was never mine. He belonged to the kingdom. To the people. He admired Glenn, and Glenn adored him. I was…"

Sylvain doesn't say anything. He rolls them both on their sides, with one hand still buried in Felix's hair, cradles the back of his head. They're a pair of commas curling into each other, tucked together. Sylvain gives him as long as he needs to breathe. Whole minutes pass. Felix's lungs inflate with the cool, crisp air, then let go. Over and over.

Here's the thing about humans: watch them for long enough, and it'll make you sick with how circular their lives are, just learning and unlearning and relearning things like hope and despair. Every generation, they forget the good and bad memories of the last. Every generation, they wake up amnesic and ready to believe all over again.

Immortals are offered no such luxury: they carry the weight of their wrath and injustice with them wherever they go. Seeing Dimitri wading in that river of boiling blood and fire, still on the prowl for more blood—knowing that he was there because he never lived the life Felix tried to give back to him—had been his breaking point.

"I wasn't nothing to them," he says, finally. "I just wasn't enough of a something."

Sylvain's hand caresses up the nape of Felix's neck, strokes his hair, and Felix is well enough re-acquainted with affection now to feel it bleeding from his fingertips. "I get that," Sylvain says softly. "It's not your fault, you know."

"I know," Felix says.

"Good," Sylvain replies, with feeling. "It's fucked, how shit people are at taking responsibility for love they give to others."

Felix thinks about this. Looks up to the same sky where some broken heart is still searching for their golden-haired prince in the stars.

He likes to think that he takes purposeful action. Understands the reason he does things. But why did he decide to leave Glenn and Dimitri behind after all these years? Was he pushed out by the stubborn, unstable ternary system they formed, or was he pulled in by a greater gravitational force?

"How do you handle responsibility?" Felix asks.

"Disastrously," Sylvain answers. His gaze is steady on Felix. "But, lately, I think I've found reason to do better."

"It's a good look on you," Felix says.

The smile on Sylvain's face forms so soft and so slow that Felix has the time to remember that Proxima, the unloved pipsqueak of Alpha Centauri, is so named for being the closest star to the sun.

"For what it's worth, I think you're really something," Sylvain says.

Felix wants to kiss him. He should kiss him. He kisses him, and Sylvain kisses him back. He pushes up on his hands, traps Felix under him, and kisses him so deep that the ground could open and swallow them up on the hood of that car and that still wouldn't be enough reason to stop kissing.

Felix loops his arms around Sylvain's neck, wraps his legs around his waist. When he reaches for the button of his jeans, Sylvain's hand lands on his wrist, and their mouths separate. Felix makes some humiliating noise of desperation.

Sylvain asks, "What if you shift?"

"You're being _too_ responsible."

Sylvain grins. "What can I say? I'm a quick study."

"Sylvain."

"Felix," he replies, pressing a kiss to Felix's forehead. 

It's embarrassing how quickly Felix softens. He huffs, averting his eyes. "I've never shifted with anyone else. I don't know why it happens whenever I feed on you. And there are times I can't even seem to control that, either. It just...fills me."

Felix counts the heartbeats that hammer in his chest until Sylvain's hand falls away from his wrist. It's hard to read Sylvain's expression, ensconced as it is in the shadows, but the tight breath he sucks in between his teeth leaves little room for interpretation. 

"I was going to suggest we take this into the backseat, or even brave a 40 minute boner on the drive home," he says, his voice so even that it wobbles around the edges. "But I think we've just axed both those possibilities."

This time, when Felix presses his hand against the thickness ridge in Sylvain's jeans, Sylvain responds with a low groan and a roll of his hips. He slides his palms under Felix's shirt, smoothing up the plane of his abs. He dips his head to mouth at Felix's neck, and Felix watches his hair light up the moon.

"You're so fucking beautiful," Sylvain mumbles into the curve of his shoulder, and Felix wonders how he'd managed to read his mind.

Just before he comes, Sylvain hauls him into his lap. Felix hates it because it should make him feel weak and helpless, like a ragdoll. He loves it because all he feels is Sylvain deep inside, feeding the craving there that's grown huge and permanent.

Felix is stronger than ten Sylvains put together. Even in his enfeebled human form, he knows he'd win in a fight, hands down. He's killed for his strength. He has killed with his strength.

But if there's a brand of strength among humans born from all their hope and despair and rebirth, then that might just be Felix's one weakness.

* * *

A cheery tune plays on the drive home.

"A little repetitive," Felix comments, but he doesn't hate it.

"This was the Beatles' first number one hit in the US," Sylvain tells him.

He reaches across and makes a loose grab at Felix's hand. It's simply nice, at first. Just some skin on skin, child's play compared to the hot-wet-sticky sex they just had on the hood of the car. But then their fingers lace together, and suddenly, it's more unbearable than anything. Like needles stitched into his skin, it's unbearable. 

It's unbearable, how he wants this feeling to last, and last, and last.

* * *

Early the following week, Sylvain drops by the market to ask if Felix can do Thursday instead. It's the last week of the Bruce Lee exhibit, and the museum is only open till late on Thursdays.

"My roommate said he's having someone over that night," Felix says.

"Your roommate," Sylvain says.

Felix frowns. "Yeah. My roommate."

Sylvain puts his hands in his pockets, tilts his head. There's a long pause. "So that's a no?"

"We can just go to your place instead." Felix shrugs.

"Sure." Sylvain smiles. "Look forward to this one."

Just like that, they've redrawn the boundaries of their relationship. A date on a Thursday, then Sylvain's place after. Was it always that easy? 

Museums usually bore Felix, but he has a pretty spectacular time at this one. He spends most of his time stalled in front of the open pages of Bruce Lee's journals, where he drew out extensive diagrams of hand-to-hand combat and wrote in obsessive detail about various scenarios for attacks and counterattacks. 

Then, there are the displays of the weapons he trained with, taken from all systems of fighting. The nunchuks, of course, but the dragon claw is pretty fucking badass, too. "Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless" is a motto Felix can get on board with. He wonders how many of this man's roots are left in this city where he's buried. Maybe he should consider taking Leonie up on that martial arts dojo, after all.

"You totally should," Sylvain says, pointing to a training photo. "Look at those hot abs. Twinsies with yours."

Felix taps him with their joined hands. "You're not getting anything out of your flattery."

"Oh, don't I know it," Sylvain says.

Felix is caught like a snag on his tone. But by the time he turns to read his expression, any trace of sharpness has been smoothed out. Sylvain looks engrossed reading the placard for the photo.

Other than the odd comment here or there, he's been pretty quiet all evening. Initially, Felix wondered if it's because he's bored by all this martial arts stuff, but on their way out, Sylvain says, "This Bruce Lee thing's supposed to be a series. We should go to the next ones, too."

Felix buys him food, thinking it'd help: milk buns and bubble tea from this bakery Sylvain goes nuts over. They stroll along the streets of downtown while he munches. The evening breeze lands cool on their cheeks. The atmosphere between them still feels lukewarm. Felix's stomach curls into a tight, anxious ball that he carries the entire way to Sylvain's place. If it's not the lack of entertainment or food that's making this a bad date for Sylvain, then it must be…?

He watches Sylvain dig out the keys to his apartment. "Are you okay?"

That's the third or fourth time he's asked, and the smile that Sylvain offers him is starting to look tired. 

"Yeah," he answers. Key in lock. Turn. He holds the door open for Felix. His place looks exactly the same way as it did months ago. Umbrella bucket to the right of the door. Coat rack to the left. Sterilely clean, free of clutter.

"You don't seem okay," Felix pushes a little.

Sylvain shrugs. A dodge is coming. "Hectic week at work. My team got the green light to do this huge project back in March, and it's finally gaining momentum. We've all been trying to keep up."

"We didn't have to do anything this week if you were already tired," Felix says.

"But we always do something on Fridays," Sylvain says.

"It's Thursday," Felix returns.

Sylvain's mouth tugs down at the corners. Felix can see half a retort already formed on his tongue when he presses his lips together. "I'm gonna grab a shower," he says instead. "Feel free to make yourself at home."

Felix's insides are a tangle of frustration as he collapses onto the couch. It doesn't make sense. What could have possibly happened to destroy the intimacy of last week? Or is that exactly what this is about? That things got more serious than Sylvain had counted on, and he's having regrets about committing himself to a demon spirit?

Is that the Sylvain Felix knows?

The throw blanket folded over the back of the couch catches Felix's eye. He remembers the first time Sylvain took him apart with his fingers and mouth and cock on this couch, fed him so well his body had freaked out, how he'd wrapped him in that blanket; how, the second time, when Felix started shivering uncontrollably in his sleep, Sylvain had cared for him, too.

Maybe Sylvain has a past. Maybe he doesn't always make good decisions. Maybe he's not better but still only _getting_ better. But Sylvain has never left him to rot. He gave Felix a bouquet of origami flowers that said, _I'll take care of you, even if you don't do the same in return._

But why shouldn't Felix at least try?

Sylvain is rubbing a towel through his hair when Felix pushes into the bathroom. "We should do something different tonight."

"Different?" Sylvain echoes, confused. When Felix drops to his knees, he almost drops his towel.

He tries to joke, "Whoa, thought you said that flattery wasn't gonna get me anywhere," but there's a panicky edge to his voice.

"You said you're stressed out about work. So let me help you relax."

Sylvain swallows visibly. "What the hell, Felix."

That one hurts. "What do you mean, _what the hell._ Do you not like blowjobs?"

"Fairly sure that's not even possible." The way Sylvain laughs is another stab in the chest. Felix's temper flares.

"I'm trying to be nice to you. Why are you being an asshole about this?"

Sylvain lets the light-hearted mask fall. He sighs, running a hand through his damp hair. "I'm not trying to be an asshole to you." 

He offers Felix a hand. After a sulky beat of resistance, Felix takes it. Sylvain wraps the towel around his waist, and they sit side by side on the rim of the tub. 

"So, your roommate," Sylvain begins, which doesn't even make the top 100 list of what Felix expected him to say. "It's Khalid, right?"

Yes—? But, _what_? Felix can't see where this conversation is going, and he says so.

Sylvain's smile is wry as he looks down at his lap. "I've known for a while now. Always thought it was weird that you never mentioned him by name when I obviously knew him. I figured it was whatever when we were just doing fun dates and fooling around; I had no right to expect anything. But then you opened up about Glenn and said all that stuff about how things were different when you fed from me. And it…" He shrugs. "Dunno. Just felt like something shifted between us."

"It did," Felix says. "It clearly did."

"Which, for me, is scary enough," Sylvain admits. "I've never been serious with anyone, but I thought I was ready to take the leap with you. When you still didn't want to just tell me who he was earlier this week, it made me wonder where you really stood with me." His laughter shakes out of him like a plastic bag with a tear. "Guess it fucked me up more than I thought."

Felix feels bad that Sylvain's been grappling with these feelings all week, but he can't help the wild rush of relief that crashes into him. He clutches the lip of the bathtub and tries to contain his reaction.

Apparently, he's not very successful. 

"What are you smirking about?" Sylvain looks like he's trying to read his face for clues.

Felix is going to save him the guesswork. "I didn't tell you because it just didn't seem like it was worth the trouble of getting into me and Khalid," he says. 

"You and Khalid," Sylvain echoes warily. "You two are…"

"He helped get me set up around here. He likes to play mediator for creatures in the human world, I suppose, but I hate that I have this debt with him and don't know when or how he's going to collect it.

"So, for me, it wasn't about you," Felix goes on. "But if we're going to be"—what's the right word here?—"us...then maybe that call isn't mine to make alone." He stares up at the fogged up mirror, wavering. Fuck it. "Sorry if I hurt your feelings."

The apology settles in the space between them, thick and heavy with steam from the shower still. Sylvain sits next to him with his lower lip sucked halways into his mouth. The coloring of his cheeks is pinker than normal, and Felix can't remember if that's just from the shower. He doesn't think so, from the shine of emotion in his eyes.

"You can't just come crashing in here trying to make up with a blowjob and then hit a guy with _that_ " is what Sylvain says when he finally speaks.

"Why not?"

"Because," Sylvain says, "it'll make him really, really wish he'd taken you up on that blowjob."

Felix trails his eyes down Sylvain's bare torso, then back up again. "Offer's still good."

"Have you ever…?"

"No," Felix replies frankly.

"You can't feed on that end of things, right?" Sylvain edges his hand over toward Felix's until their pinkies overlap. Felix turns his hand, letting their fingers fall into place together. "You don't have to, you know. I'd love it, obviously, but..."

"Why would you deny yourself something you love when it's yours to take?"

Sylvain looks up. Felix watches his mouth curve into that revelation of a grin that makes his chest tighten. "Mine, huh."

Felix offers him a smile back, a small subtle thing. But he knows Sylvain wouldn't miss it.

* * *

Before this, Felix never quite understood why Sylvain spent so much time with his head between Felix's legs. He's beginning to see the appeal. It's the way Sylvain keeps making these strangled sounds like he's about to bust out of his skin; how he can't seem to decide whether he wants his hands cupped around Felix's face or twisted in his hair. Nothing so gratifying as making so gorgeous a man unravel.

"Yeah. That's so... _so_ good, fuck," Sylvain moans as Felix slides the hand not busy working his shaft up the inside of his thigh, giving his balls a squeeze. 

Sylvain leaks into his mouth, hot and bitter. Felix is obsessed. He wants more. Wants to feel even closer to him, make him lose his mind with how good it feels to be taken care of.

He's already ventured up Sylvain's body, knows that he likes when Felix is a little mean to his nipples and that the scrape of nails on his abs makes him grip the sheets. Felix lets the hand cradled around Sylvain's balls wander south, trailing his fingers past a soft, smooth strip of skin.

Sylvain sucks in an audible breath when he traces the rim of his ass.

They haven't talked about this since the first night they met, when Sylvain had been surprisingly open to the idea but Felix hadn't been serious, just taunting him. Things have changed for Felix; he wonders if they have, too, for Sylvain.

"Do you want this?" Felix asks, drawing the same loose circle. No pressure.

"You said"—Sylvain's voice cracks so badly he has to clear his throat to make out another word —"that's something only good boys deserve."

Someone has a good memory. Smart. Felix's always liked that about him.

"You're good to me," he says. And then, because that doesn't even cover the half of it, he tells him, "You're good, Sylvain."

A full-body shudder rips down Sylvain's body, and Felix feels a reciprocal tremor run through his own. His cunt feels unbearably empty. He's dripping between the legs. His clit throbs for attention. He squeezes his thighs together, feeling the impatient ache grow. He imagines shoving a hand down there, thrusting two fingers inside himself, and the burst of relief that it'd bring to his hollow core. 

But the need to do exactly that to Sylvain wins out. He pictures Sylvain with his thick thighs spread wide, hips pushed up off the bed, lips parted around a moan. Fucking pretty. 

"There's lube in the— _oh_." Sylvain's eyes widen, watching Felix sit up on his knees and coat his fingers with his own slick. "That's—resourceful. Yes. Love it."

He looks awestruck, eyes glazed over, as Felix leans over him, braces a hand next to his head. He reaches the other down between Sylvain's legs again, nudging them open wider. He spreads the slickness around his entrance, massaging it into the skin. His fingertip teases at breaching the hole.

"I asked you a question," Felix says. "Yes or no."

Sylvain nods his head once, then several more times over. "Yes. Yes, please. _Please._ "

"A reward for the good boy," Felix says and gives him the first digit. It's so much hotter, so much tighter inside than he'd have ever thought. He could fuck him just like this. He wants to burrow under this man's skin, bury deep in his body. Felix's finger slides in all the way to the base knuckle. Sylvain makes a desperate noise that carries only as far as Felix's mouth when he dips down to smother his lips with his own. Sylvain's kisses are wet and sloppy all over Felix's lips and chin, out of control. Felix decides that that must mean he's doing something right.

"Look at you," he says, teeth scraping Sylvain's jaw. "So fucking tight. Feels so good wrapped around me."

"Jesus," Sylvain breathes. He buries his face into the arm next to his head and lets out a shaky, disbelieving chuckle. "You are so much more than I ever bargained for. You know that?"

"You deserve it. Me. This. All of it," Felix tells him. Then, he crooks his finger, dragging it slowly along the soft, smooth walls until a swollen, textured patch makes Sylvain's head tip back, neck muscles straining.

"There," he chokes out. 

And that's all it takes for Felix's whole world to pinhole down to a single point of pleasure. Soon, one finger becomes two, then three. He brings his other hand down to pump Sylvain's cock loosely, not enough to finish him off, only serving as a counterpoint to the relentless pressure of the fingers inside him.

When Sylvain speaks up again, it comes out as a hoarse gasp. It takes a second for Felix to register what he's said. He slows his hands. 

"Equipment?"

Sylvain bobs his head like he's got no bones in his neck. He pushes the wild nest of curls off his forehead. "Bottom cabinet in the nightstand," he says. "Wanna come around your cock."

Pale, damp eyelashes frame his big brown eyes. A sheen of sweat shines on his freckled skin, a puddling forming between his collarbones. His ears are bright red with embarrassment that he's trying to cover up with a broad, confident smile.

Felix wants to eat him _alive_.

In the cabinet he finds the (half-empty) bottle of lube Sylvain had mentioned earlier along with a small collection of toys. For a guy who had zero equipment when they first met, he seems to be now well prepared. Felix asks him which one he wants and lets him strap it into the harness. 

This is all new to Felix. He can only let Sylvain tell him what's good and watch carefully for his reactions. He's rapt and focused on the way Sylvain bites down on his bottom lip until the skin turns white when the cockhead slips in. Sylvain makes a grab at him, gets part of his shoulder. Felix leans forward off his heels to let Sylvain octopus his limbs around him like he wants. His hands are on Sylvain's hips, holding him off the bed to get a better angle. Sylvain continues to nod at him, lips parted and eyes half-lidded, so Felix keeps pressing in, slow and steady until the front and backs of their thighs meet, and Sylvain says, "Okay, okay, just. Just, a sec."

Felix can feel the way Sylvain is trembling around him, breathing staggered. He strokes the side of his neck with a hand. "We could've gone for a smaller one. No need to show off."

"When I played around on my own," Sylvain says, "that's the one that felt most like you." 

The strained, strangled quality of his voice is the only bar holding Felix back from snapping his hips selfishly. He distracts himself, laving open-mouthed kisses up Sylvain's throat, scraping his lips on his stubble. "Earlier, you made it sound like you didn't think you'd ever end up on the receiving end with me."

"A guy can hope, right?" Sylvain smiles his stupid, charming, lopsided smile. He's so fucking cute, trying to play it cool with his ass stuffed so full he can barely take a proper breath without shaking on the exhale. "If I'd known we were doing this, I would've done a better work-up this week."

"No," Felix says, the only time he's ever objected to more training. "I like you just like this."

Sylvain has no protest against that, so Felix begins to move again. Sylvain's expression changes gradually from strained to contented to urgent. He lifts up for a kiss, and Felix answers, almost crushing his mouth. He kisses his ear, jawline, sucks between his collarbones, wet and sloppy, spit everywhere, grabs Sylvain's hair, tilts his head back, whispers, _good, you're so good._

Sylvain is mouthy until he's about to come, and then he's a downright _menace_. Felix begins to push hard when he hears Sylvain cry out. He's moaning out Felix's name, which is doubly dangerous. Sylvain has altered the angle between them, somewhere, found the one that rubs the base of the strap against Felix's clit. Felix doesn't notice the change at first, only the way his entire body is buzzing. Only the way every nerve is pointed, alert, tingling. Only the way he can think of nothing, nothing in the entire living universe but his need to come and Sylvain and his even greater need to make _him_ come. Nothing but his need to never, ever be anywhere else but right here, where he belongs. 

That's all he's ever wanted, really.

It only takes two good tugs of Sylvain's cock before he's emptying himself everywhere, sticky and hot over his own stomach, Felix's hand, his chest. He yells out, and it's Felix and Felix and Felix. It tips Felix over, too. He convulses over Sylvain, hips grinding frantically into him.

The frenzy of pleasure settles into a gentle buzz. Felix pulls out carefully and disentangles himself from the harness, tossing it aside. He lets his elbows fold and drops onto Sylvain's chest, both of them _oof_ ing. The position isn't exactly comfortable, but no one is complaining. Felix feels Sylvain's hand move over his sweat-drenched back. 

"Baby," he murmurs.

Felix makes a sound like a car engine, only less elegant. 

Sylvain drags his fingertips up the curve of his spine. It makes him shiver, oversensitive.

"Felix," he says.

"Yeah?"

"It's Friday."

Felix hums in acknowledgement, not bothering to look at the clock on the nightstand. He'll take Sylvain's word for it.

"I love Fridays," Sylvain says.

"Most people do," Felix replies.

Sylvain nuzzles against Felix's neck, brushes his lips over his pulse point. "Not the way that I do."

Felix knows what Sylvain is saying. But he wants more than Fridays—he wants Mondays through Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, too. Who knows if that insatiable greed spawns from the succubus or human in him; either way, Felix thinks he can trust Sylvain to take him exactly as he is.

The rain pounds on the window. It's another cloudy, starless night in Seattle, but Felix doesn't care about the moon or stars or black, endless sky. Because when Sylvain tips up for a kiss, Felix finds his new favorite place to watch the sunrise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope y'all enjoyed! :') might revisit this universe in the future for more succubus goodness, but farewell for now!
> 
> [RT this fic](https://twitter.com/orgiastique/status/1327030636734013445) | [my other sylvix stuff](https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&include_work_search%5Brelationship_ids%5D%5B%5D=33627679&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bexcluded_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bcrossover%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_from%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_to%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_from%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_to%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&user_id=orgiastique)


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